Someone shared with me recently that Martin Luther wrote a commentary on Galatians. I’ve been reading through it and enjoying his insight. The newest thing I’ve been pondering in the mornings over hot cocoa is “reason.”
Reason seems to be so often a sign of maturation. If we can think reasonably then we have essentially “grown up.” We make decisions that are “within reason” and we feel good about that.
But what about the idea of faith? And not only faith, but CHILDLIKE faith. Is it reasonable to believe? Is it reasonable that we should be given new and full lives because of what we believe rather than because of what we do? Could it be possible that our biggest hindrance in following our dreams and being ourselves and falling in love with and chasing after God is because it isn’t reasonable?
Are you going after anything in your life that seems absurd? Has reason ever kept you from something you longed for? Isn’t it a crazy notion to think our own reasoning can stand between us and God? Is it a sign of weakness or a sign of strength to trade our reason for faith in God?
My favorite quotes from Luther follow:
When we pay attention to reason, God seems to propose impossible matters in the Christian Creed. To reason it seems absurd that Christ should offer His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper; that Baptism should be the washing of regeneration; that the dead shall rise; that Christ the Son of God was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, etc. Reason shouts that all this is preposterous. Are you surprised that reason thinks little of faith? Reason thinks it ludicrous that faith should be the foremost service any person can render unto God.
Let your faith supplant reason. Abraham mastered reason by faith in the Word of God. Not as though reason ever yields meekly. It put up a fight against the faith of Abraham. Reason protested that it was absurd to think that Sarah who was ninety years old and barren by nature, should give birth to a son. But faith won the victory and routed reason, that ugly beast and enemy of God. Everyone who by faith slays reason, the world’s biggest monster, renders God a real service, a better service than the religions of all races and all the drudgery of meritorious monks can render.
If you were to go back through my journals, one thing you’d see me writing about consistently would be the idea of traveling. I have this sort of vagabond spirit inside of me that I can’t quite figure out. I feel like the more I see and experience the better understanding I will get of God. God is certainly much bigger than my scope of Him. Putting myself outside of what is comfortable always seems to usher in a new found passion and adoration for God. “Wow, so you’re even bigger?!”
I love the mystery of Him and the adventure that seems to conjure up inside me.
My longing to travel is a longing for a change of my normal pace, a change of the normal people I see, a change of the normal food I eat, the normal smells I smell, the normal feelings I feel. My longing to travel is a longing to have my “normals” shook up.
So here we are a week out from traveling to California for a two-week vacation, something that should be a dream come true, and I am stressing out. You know how gearing up for travel can be. I have to pack and stop the mail and let people know we won’t be where we regularly are. I have to think about things like food spoiling, bills getting paid on time, lodging, vacation activities, etc. If I’m not careful, this could turn into an ugly tailspin, as my shoulders and neck begin to tighten and my voice becomes short and tense.
So I stop. I say, “This is not going down like this God. I’ve dreamed for travel. I’m getting to travel. I’ve dreamed for having my normals shook up. This is shaking my normals up. I am going to enjoy this.”
I sense Him leading me to read old journals. To find old dream lists. To recall my heart’s desires. To see old prayers. I realize that not only was it scary to write those dreams down (for fear they may never happen), it is even more scary to have the dreams finally happen. Now they are staring me down, breathing down my neck. What if I don’t have what it takes to live out my own dreams? What if I’m not cut out for traveling with a family of four kids afterall? What about all the stinkin’ details that I didn’t think about when I was dreaming?
I am reminded of Phil 1:6 There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.
God started those dreams in me and God will help me finish those dreams. He does not invite us into things that He will not also help us finish. He helps us take baby steps. Each little step gets us closer to that bigger dream that He instilled in us. And we keep right on after it until the end of our life.
I’m so thankful I have my dreams documented. I can’t escape them and I can’t shrink back when they finally start to come true. I’m praying through this California travel. I’m believing it is all that I once dreamed it would be. I can hardly wait to see what God teaches me through this and how much more full my life will feel as I enter in.
As you are reading this I should be in California enjoying my vacation. I am writing blog posts ahead of time because I have a long lists of blog posts I’ve been meaning to write, and so my hope is that they will carry me through my vacation. I don’t plan on blogging on vacation.
As I’m looking to start packing tomorrow to leave on the trip that when you read this I will already be on (wow, is this ever getting confusing), I’m making lists of things I want to take with me.
I am thinking about how it can be difficult, as an artist, to travel, especially if you are the type of artist who can’t seem to make up her mind about what medium she prefers. I certainly can’t haul our entire art closet with us to California. Although the thought did cross my mind.
I know for sure I will be taking my camera and my journal to write in. I rarely go anywhere without those. But I’ve also decided to try something new on this trip. I’m going to fill a little bag for myself and limit the contents to the following art supplies:
- Index Cards
- Watercolor Paints
- Sharpie Marker
- Scissors
- Glue Stick
At an art show this summer, I fell in love with an artist’s work that was created on index cards. He told us that he had been traveling and had very little money and so he decided a pack of index cards was the cheapest route to go. With his limited means, he created some fantastic little pieces.
When the mood strikes me to create while I’m vacationing, I’ll be limited by these tools. My hope is that something new and creative and fresh will come out of it. Limiting the supplies = stretching the creativity. Right?
I’ve really been enjoying editing the color of my photos recently. In fact, I found myself returning to some of the same tweaks so many times, that I decided to save my edits into a Photoshop action.
So if you own Photoshop and enjoy the look of a lot of the photos you’ve been seeing on my blog lately (including my new snowman header), I’m selling the action here at Scrap Girls. There is a commercial licensed version as well.
I keep a Someday Maybe list for stuff I want to purchase. It helps me from buying things spontaneously before I’ve thought them through. It helps me prioritize my purchases. It helps me know what to tell family when they say, “What can I get you for your birthday?”
I have all sorts of Someday Maybe lists (and not just for purchasing things.) I have them for me personally, Tony and I have one for our home, I have one for our kids.
Every now and then I’ll go through them and happily cross stuff of when I realize we were able to purchase it. Or I’ll cross stuff off that, with time, I’ve realized we just don’t really need. Other times things will stay on the list for months, just waiting to be bumped up in priority.
For the longest time, the list for our kids has had face paints on it. I can remember when I was little having the coolest little face paint pencils, and with as much imagination and creativity as my kids have, I knew they would love them as well.
Finally, this Christmas, the face paints got checked off the list. I kept hoping I could find them really cheap somewhere, but I refused to sacrifice quality. Those perfect little face paint pencils from my childhood had spoiled me. I ended up purchasing these from imaginechildhood.com.
They were worth every penny!
Tony does this pretty neat thing. Sometimes he asks our kids to pick out his clothes for him. And what’s more, he actually wears what they pick. This can be a bit daring, as you might end up with some outlandish outfit. If you are going to try this, I would highly recommend that you first clean all of those clothes out of your closet that you hate and are just holding onto for “that right moment.” Because invariably, they will pick those clothes first.
When my kids get dressed in the morning they don’t think about:
- What they are going to do that day.
- Who they are going to see and what that person might think of their outfit.
- If the clothes are new or nice and therefore should be saved for a special occasion.
- If the clothes match.
- If the clothes clash.
- If they will be too hot or too cold.
- If the clothes are in fashion.
- If the clothes are dirty, stained, or have holes in them.
Things my kids might consider when getting dressed in the morning:
- Is my outfit too itchy?
- Do I look beautiful?
- Can I perform superhero feats in this outfit?
And really, I think those are the best questions to ask when choosing an outfit, don’t you?
The other day as I was staring into my closet, I knew exactly what I wanted to wear. But I had all these inhibitions about it. Then this thought came into my mind, “Do not hold back an outfit waiting to be invited to a special occasion. Wear the outfit and invite the special occasion to come to you.” That very day Tony took me on an unexpected lunch date and we stumbled upon the perfect little hole-in-the-wall mom and pop deli. A lady that could have been my grandma served us homemade soup, sandwiches and buttered bread. I even got to drink strawberry milk. I love dressing childlike.
When Tony got home from work the other day he made an incredibly kind comment to me. “You look so pretty, dressed nice and everything and here you are stuck inside this house all day. I’m sorry.”
I was thankful for the compliment, but I told him he needn’t be sorry.
“Oh, I’ve traveled thousands of miles away from this house today, without even leaving our street. Don’t worry about me. I do get out.”
He asked me what I meant by that. You might be asking the same thing.
Perhaps it’s because I’m an introvert that I can handle staying at home all day. Or perhaps it’s because I’ve gotten better at taking time for myself when I need it, so I’m not so drained. Or perhaps it’s because I’m doing better at believing our home and my days can be as adventurous as I desire them to be. In the evenings, before I go to bed, if I can manage to put even a small inkling of thought into what tomorrow will hold, the days go so much better.
This particular day was packed with all sorts of fun. Reading Around the World in 80 Days. Studying and drawing and talking about the globe, coloring, reading Ramona Quimby, exercising, playing the piano and the guitar, making food, playing with neighbors. We had done so much adventuring my day felt extremely full. I felt like I had explored all sorts of places and it was almost a shock when I realized, from Tony’s comment, that I didn’t leave the house.
I have dreams of traveling. Of going to distant countries and seeing things I’ve never seen. Of sharing that with my family. Of tasting food different than what I’m used to, seeing people different than what I’m used to, hearing music different than what I’m used to, seeing architecture and landscapes different than what I’m used to. But until those dreams become financially possible, I must rely on books and imagination to carry my kids and me far, far away.
In my mind, I do get out. All the time.
One of my absolute favorite artists right now is Keri Smith. I have, quite accidentally, started my own Keri Smith library. I picked up this first book while we were still living in California. It’s called Living Out Loud. Since getting this book, I’ve picked up a few others of hers along the way, including this book that I got for Zoe for Christmas. We’ve been doing some of the activities in Zoe’s book and it’s re-sparked my interest in Keri Smith and her books.
Here’s why I love her. SHE MAKES ME THINK OUTSIDE OF MY BOX! She makes me want to read books about things I know nothing about. She makes me want to play. She makes me want to explore. She helps make me embrace my word for this year – CHILDLIKE.
So we are going through the Living Out Loud book as part of our homeschooling. And when we finish that one, I have at least 3, other books of Keri’s that will be equally as wonderful. The Living Out Loud book is more artistic in nature, but some of the others are just plain creative thinking. Exercises to make us think outside of our box. Good stuff!
Last week we made these finders out of cardboard. They allow you to see life in a different way. Looking through our finders we saw things we would have never seen otherwise. Colors, textures, details. Why, I even discovered islands! I was looking with my finder on a globe and I discovered islands way out in the middle of the ocean that I didn’t even know existed!
(*note – I’ve found the finder can also be used when you are in an overwhelming situation, such as if your house is completely cluttered in toys and kid clothes and food crumbs and the like. you can look through the finder to focus in on one little bit of life, and blur out the chaos all around you as you think, “ah, what a nice mix of colors those legos make, strewn so artistically across the floor.”)
I used the finder with my 3 oldest kids. We each picked an object, so 4 in total. We would use our finder to discover something on the object and then we would draw it in our journal. When we were done “finding” and documenting all 4 things we compared drawings. It was so cool to see the different ways our eyes looked at things.
I wanted to add that I used to just flip through Keri Smith’s books. “What nice ideas,” I would think. They are nice coffee table material. But when you really engage and interact with them, which is of course what she intended, something magical happens. She makes you play. The adult in me seldom wants to play.
Our friend Cynthia Ware sent us some of their family’s kid books that they don’t use anymore. This science experiment book was one of them. Being that I am more of the artsy type and not so much the science/math type, I’ve decided to incorporate this book into our homeschooling. I need the help.
My friend Abbi has been working through a cupcake recipe book, and she has inspired me to do the same with some of the books we have sitting on our shelves. (We’re doing this with art some too. I’ll have to share about that in another post.)
Right now we’re doing Science on Wednesday. Last Wednesday we did two experiments. One of them was with oil and water.
Love it that I actually managed to catch their surprised expressions. I must admit here, I was thinking science was pretty dang cool too.
And pretty! Who knew?
This was the second experiment. First we put a ball of clay in the water and it sank, just like the marbles did. Then we had to make the clay into a boat, so that not only would it not sink, it would also hold the marbles. I COULDN’T GET IT TO WORK! Every time I tried to put my clay boat in the water it would sink. Those horrible high school feelings came rushing over me. I instantly remembered when I failed my egg-drop physics assignment. I started hearing in my head, “See? You aren’t any good at science. What made you think you could teach your kids science?”
But I don’t give up easily, and my kids were cheering me on. So we finally figured it out. And can I tell you how excited we all were? It just takes some trial and error (much like art) and some creative thinking (totally like art.) I think I like this science stuff.
Luther was watching too. He’ll use anything as an excuse to stand on a chair. Eventually our boat filled with water and it sank. Then the kids all worked with the clay to try and fashion their own floating boat.
Tomorrow is another Wednesday. Another science experiment. Another challenge, no doubt, for me. But, I actually think it’s helping me as an artist to make my brain think in creative ways it usually doesn’t. I’m telling myself this anyway.
- The fact that we leave for a California vacation in just a few days! I can’t wait to see friends, palm trees, the beach, and eat at some of our favorite restaurants we’ve missed in OK.
- Pamplamoose
- This music video.
- Keri Smith.
- Around the World In 80 Days
- The feedback I’ve been getting on my writing/blogging. Thank you for those of you who take the time to comment and let me know how what I’m writing and learning and sharing is inspiring you in your life. It means so much, and inspires me to keep blogging!
- Learning to play Night Time from Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
- This podcast. Thanks Erica for sharing it with me. Makes my heart happy to see a creative family chasing their dreams, together.
- Learning to cook some vegetarian meals with the help of a new e-mealz plan. Learning new things out of my comfort zone always inspires me.
10. This verse from Galatians:
Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.
I think about what a privilege it is to get to talk to God like my children talk to me. To feel FREE to ask questions that might be silly, make requests that might be selfish and share my heart, my dreams, my hopes without embarrassment. Too often I don’t just have open dialogue with Him because, well He’s God. But when I see it in the context of this verse and am aware of the conversations I love for my kids to have with me, I realize I don’t have to worry about being silly or foolish or shy or embarrassed or selfish or fearful or censored in my dialogue with God. I am His child. We just talk. Being CHILDLIKE makes every thing so much more simple.
Your turn. Finish the sentence. Today, I’m Inspired By…
