New Year, New Adventures!

     So, y'all... it is 2020!  Not just a new year, but a new decade!  Does anyone else remember when it was the year 2000, and that seemed so amazing?  (I mean,after the Y2K thing was over...haha!)   I'm just saying...that was a fast 20 years!

     In the last 20 years, so many things have happened to our family!  We went from carefree, impulse-trip-to the-beach kind of people to fall-into-bed-at 9:30 kind of people.  Four kids will do that to you.  We bought a house, rented the house, and moved to the parsonage.  We went from Hubby working a 9-5 office job, to taking on the running of a school.  From a stay at home mom to a working full time (plus some!) mom.  From babies to big kids to mostly grown ones. 

     I look back on those people, and I wonder where they went some days.  When the biggest decision I made in a week was whether to pack a picnic lunch or buy one when I took the babies to the zoo on Friday!  Man...that was so long ago.  I admit--I wonder what my life would look like now if things had continued in the same way.  Would I be a cookie baking, Latin teaching homeschool mom?  Would I be worn to a frazzle trying to do everything around the house because it was my "job"? 

    You see, change necessitates growth.  I wouldn't recognize myself in that world because I am not that person anymore.  When I lived there, I could totally see that person...in fact, I thought it would be inevitable that I would become that person.  But now, she seems so strange to me.  I've outgrown her. 

    Not that I regret outgrowing her.  I don't think a butterfly looks back at the chrysalis with regret.  But it took change to become the new creature.  And change is painful at times.  I don't know if you have ever done one of those butterfly cage things...but y'all...that thing surprised me.  I knew the butterflies had to emerge from the chrysalis and that it was a struggle for them that allowed them to grow the muscles needed to move forward to the next step.  But when we did one in our class, the chrysalis stage was way more intense than I expected. "Emerge" is such a gentle sounding word.  Y'all...the butterfly cage looked like a murder scene!  Red goo everywhere from the force of the chrysalis breaking open and the butterfly forcing its way out!  (The class was awed and grossed out at the same time!) 

     But isn't that how our lives are?  I mean, I know there were things that I've been through in the last 20 years that made me feel like I was struggling out of one stage in an explosion of red goo...only to wind up floundering about at the bottom for a while until finally getting to the next stage.  Just to have it start all over again once I thought I had a handle on it.  But this process is how we grow.  Hopefully, the more this process happens, the less struggle it will take over time and the process of change will be smoother.  It's growing up, y'all. 

     I know I'm about to enter a whole new time of change.  My kids are turning from kids to young adults.  In 5 years, my First Born will be 20.  It's our job to get them through this final critical stage of childhood so that their entry into adulthood isn't covered in red goo with them struggling at the bottom of the cage.  My prayers for my kids have been turning more and more into asking that God will guide us in helping our kids become adults.  That they will see us living our lives in obedience to God in a consistent way.  And that they will begin to see the reality of a life lived for Jesus rather than for self. 

     So, as I reflect on the last 20 years, and ponder the next 20, I know this life will be filled with new struggles, new adventures, and new growth.  But my prayer is that there will be less red goo and floundering and more "growing in grace."  And that 20 years from now, I'll look back and be amazed at what God has done!  :)

   

   

Find Us Faithful

     Fall has arrived...but just in name only around here!  Even though it is still hot, I am ready to start celebrating fall!  it is my favorite season, and my feelings can be summed up in a quote from one of my favorite books, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!"

     Of course, fall does kick off a busy season around here!  We have several events filling up the calendar for the next few weeks.  School, Scouts, church, and family activities keep up moving around here for sure.

     One of those activities I have been taking part in for about 25 years.  That event is our tent revival meeting with the Stewarts.  I first met them when I was about 13 or so, and they have been a part of my fall season every year since then.  We first had them for a tent revival when my Dad was pastoring in Pennsylvania. (Just FYI, Octobers in PA are a lot different than Octobers in AL... it was freezing our first meeting!)  They began doing them here at church before we moved down here when my grandfather was pastoring here.

    This year, as I was watching my boys help set up the tent, I was thinking about faithfulness.  I did the same jobs 20 years ago that they are doing now.  I can pass on this tradition to my kids, and that makes me happy.  But that wouldn't be possible without faithfulness.  The simple faithfulness of two humble servants of God who just simply serve each day to the best of their ability.  Since I was the age my kids are now, they have steadily served in this ministry.  (I think their official count is 30 years with the tent.)  This is such a rare thing now.

     People just aren't content to do the same thing steadily for any length of time.  We are always looking for the next big thing, or content to think we just don't have time or energy to be faithful.  We struggle with just getting up and meeting with God every day, much less putting our whole life to the same task.  Have we lost the importance of simple faithfulness in the hustle and bustle of this crazy life?

    As I see the Stewarts slowing down just a little more each year, I pray that I can carry on their legacy.  Not necessarily as a tent evangelist, but just the faithfulness to the minstry God has called me to.  I think the legacy of faithfulness is growing ever more rare.  I want to pass it on to my kids.  I want them to be able to look around and see those who are steadily faithful on a daily basis.  Just doing the right thing each day because it is the right thing.

     I hope this encourages you to determine to be faithful....even in the busy times of life.  Because those who come behind us need to see our faithfulness so they can be faithful.  It is a legacy we can't afford to neglect.  :)

Making Miles and Memories

     Well, I didn't make the July blog post, but it is still officially August, so I made this month's at least!!  July was a really busy month for the Lipskoch family!  Between summer school prep, family get-togethers, and cross-country road trips, there wasn't much time for blogging! 

     We managed to pull off another road trip for two weeks in the middle of July.  It had been three years since our last trip out West to see Daddy's family, so we decided it was about time to pull out the suitcases and get packed up.  And it takes a lot of suitcases for 6 people to take a two week road trip!!  But finally we got it all together and got on the road!

     One of the main purposes of the road trip was to visit family we don't get to see very often.  The kids enjoyed spending lots of fun time with cousins they don't get to see very often.  Good times were had by all!

    Travel is an important thing for you to do with your kids, as much as you are able.  There is so much of the world to see, and you'll never see it if you never leave your own back yard.  Observation, planning, flexibility, and confidence are just a few of the things kids develop when they are exposed to new places and things.  Not to mention the sense of reality it brings when they can compare their experience to the things they may learn about in school.  Those covered wagon journeys don't seem so far removed when you driven across the country for a thousand miles!  "Big" takes on a whole new meaning when you stand under the shadow of a mountain.  "Wild" seems a whole lot more real when you're looking at the claw marks of a bear in a tree on a trail you are on!   And prairie dogs are really cute up close and personal!

     We ate sandwiches on paper towels as we drove down the interstate.  Daddy and First Born stopped in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere to see the Milky Way.  Middle Biscuit and Stitch taught Little Sister to play 21 in the back seat.  I got flattened pennies where ever we could find them.  (The best souveniers!)  Miles were traveled, memories were made, and that was the whole point.  It wasn't a resort Disney vacation.  We didn't stay in five star hotels with pools and wi-fi.  (We didn't even have cell signal most of the time!)  But I hope they remember it as one of their best times.  We know we don't have much time left with all of them together.  Soon enough we won't be able to coordinate everyone's schedules to take the time to go somewhere together.  But until then, we'll keep traveling and talking and laughing and arguing and being a family.  Because that's what's important.  :)