cool kids

dear emily,

my children heard me say, more times than they wanted,
"steer clear from the cool kids at school.  they're the ones
who pressure you into changing your image, your morals,
and your integrity.

besides, they get more than their fair share of attention and
don't really need yours.   the uncool kids, on the other hand,
are desperate for a little kindness in the form of a smile,
encouraging word, or lunch partner.

these kids will accept you for yourself, not pressuring you
to change.  they're way more fun, because they're usually
more intelligent and can think outside the 'cool' box."

my self preserving skills were much too sharp to hang with
the cool kids when i was in high school.  they were very
scary to my little nerdy self.  my only transgression was to
date, and eventually marry, the nicest cool guy in school.

a few years ago, an elderly woman stopped hans to ask him
if he was the 'hans' in her daughter's history class, the one
who told her every day that her homemade dresses were
very pretty.

yep, he's the one!  my mom made a lot of my dresses, too.

love,
lea

"the King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did
for the least of these...you did for Me.' "     matthew 25:40

easter memories

dear emily,

i know it's a little early, but my friend vee jumpstarted the
festivities, and now i can't stop thinking about it.

here's our favorite easter tradition.  my carpenter friend built
us an eight foot high wooden cross that we draped with
purple cloth until easter morning and placed it on our front
lawn.   early sunday morning i would  replace the cloth with
dozens of gold mylar balloons.

then we would decorate long tables and load them up with
donuts, fruit, juice, coffee, and hot chocolate.  around 8:00,
nine or ten families with colonies of children would jump
out of their cars all dressed up in their easter finest or still
in their jammies, we didn't care which.

we had a group of guitars with lots of singing and playing,
and donuts flying through the air.  at 9:00, each child let a
balloon go,  and we watched them all soar together into the
sky.   i am amazed now that not even the tiniest child ever
fussed about losing his balloon.

i told hans yesterday that i'm going to up the ante a bit with
my grandchildren and hire a hot air balloon.  he thinks i'm
kidding.

love,
lea

ps.  "up from the grave, He arose with a mighty triumph
o'er His foes!..."

tallgrass prairie preserve

dear emily,

as hans and i were drinking our coffee this morning, isaac called
to check on us.  i think the kids are worried that i might do
something crazy now that they're all gone.

"hey dad, what are you guys doing?"

"well, your mom and i have just been debating the merits of an
L. P. C."

"you're getting her a licensed professional counselor?"

"no, actually we're sitting here talking about the plight of the
lesser prairie chicken."

silence

"ok...umm...hey, i guess that's as good a cause as any, taking
care of the 'least of these.'"

seriously, we had been discussing oklahoma's 39,000 acre tall
grass prairie preserve, the largest protected tall grass prairie on
the planet.  the beautiful three feet high grasses protect quail,
grouse, pheasants, prairie chickens and feed 2,500 buffalo.

this wonderland is surrounded by an additional 5 million acres,
"where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet, when the wind
comes right behind the rain!"

this would be a really fun field trip for your little prairie chickens.
if you bring them in the summer, you can enjoy the mozart
festival and gorgeous wildflowers, too.

love,
lea

"for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a
thousand hills."  psalm 50:10

joie de vivre!

dear  emily,

one of my chief regrets in raising my flock is that i worried too
much about doing it well and not enough about doing it with
joy.  is there another word that makes your heart lift like that
little one?

recently, i read a darwin quote, in which he bemoaned that
he couldn't enjoy a line of poetry, shakespeare, art, or music
like he did "up to the age 30...the loss of these tastes is a loss
of happiness and possibly injurious to the intellect, and more
probably to the moral character..."

when i am 90, i want to giggle with my great grandchildren as
we wiggle our toes in cold, bubbly streams.  i hanker for many
hikes to the top of green hills and endless stacks of books to
devour.  i yearn to sing the "hallelujah chorus, hitting all the
high notes and have youngsters ask, "how does she sing like
that at her age?"

my hero, c.s. lewis says that "the whole of man is to drink
from the fountain of joy...like the feeling a child has when
he awakens in the morning to realize it is the beginning of
summer!"

john piper maintains that the "chief end of man is to glorify
God BY enjoying Him forever."  we have let the stoics and
kant bully us into believing happiness or joy are selfish.

life sends me hardship, pain, and loss.  i have had to sacrifice
beloved possessions and people.   but i choose not to dwell
there.

i am content that "...though i do not see Him, i believe in
Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible!"
1 peter 1:8

love,
lea

lenten season

dear emily,

many believers fast or give up something for lent.  when hailey
was five or six, she told an elder in our church that she was
fasting dark chocolate.  she hated dark chocolate.

it's not an altogether bad idea to fast what we hate: lies, gossip,
unkind thoughts or deeds, self pity, laziness...my list could go
on for a while.

the trouble with that, though, is "what you focus on, increases."
i stole that from andy andrews' book,  "the noticer."

i respect those who sacrifice at this time when we consider the
Lord's 40 days in the wilderness and His crucifixion.  it shows
an empathy for His suffering, that we take for granted.

instead of sacrificing for lent this year, however, i am going to
lean.  lean on His words, His love, His laying down of His life,
and on His everlasting arms.

i would love to hear what you are doing at this sacred time.

love,
lea

"what thou, my Lord, hast suffered
was all for sinners' gain;
mine, mine was the transgression,
but Thine the deadly pain."

listen so your kids will talk

dear emily,

when we started sending our children off to school, we
made the mistake of asking, "how was your day?"

"fine."

"well, what did you learn in school today?"

"nothing."

not a great start, but we were fast learners, and instead we
began asking, "what were two good things that happened
today and one hard thing?" or "tell us the favorite lesson
you learned today."

that went a little better.  joe white of the kanakuk camps
teaches parents to ask open ended questions with follow
up queries like, "wow, how did that make you feel or
how did you think of that?"

he calls it  "how to listen so your kids will talk."  it's much
harder to do than you would think.  i'm pretty terrible at it.

since you still have young ones, who ask a million questions
a day, you can hardly imagine monosyllabic answers from
them. i remember thinking, "my teenagers will never be like
those  in movies."  it's heart breaking until you realize, they
can't really help it.  their bodies are going crazy on them, and
they have to battle tough kids all day.

remember "freaky friday?"  it's good to try to put ourselves
in their shoes every now and then.  after that, just listen to
them and don't always tell them the better way to do every-
thing.  they want someone on their side.  they want a safe
place where people love them and believe in them.

one of our dear ones dropped a bomb on us recently, and
it was the hardest thing in the world to just listen and
encourage, when i was dying inside to holler, "are you
kidding me?" the truth is that i trust this child's heart and
know he/she will come out on top.

love,
lea

"children are a reward from Him," psalm 127:3

my best valentine's present

dear emily,

you are not going to believe what i got for valentine's day!

hans sat our youngest daughters down and told them a story
about  a family he had watched on TV.  the family kept
getting sick, but they could not  diagnose the illness.  while
the older children and parents' immune systems could fight
off the assault, their little two year old sister became weaker,
eventually needing an oxygen mask to breathe.

it turns out their home was emitting a poisonous gas that
most of them could fight off, but which the youngest was
just more vulnerable to.  once they opened all the windows
and fixed the gas leak, she recovered beautifully.

hans went on to say that life is full of negative, destructive,
and often invisible forces that come against us continuously.
the lies include "you're fat, you're dumb, you could never do
that..." many of the deceptions are insidious and sneak up on
us when we are most vulnerable.

some of us are naturally optimistic and more immune to those
lies, but others are especially susceptible.  he told them that it
was important that they recognize a lie when they hear it and
to not 'breathe' it in.

instead, hold fast the truth, and surround themselves with
positive, good influences to counteract the negative ones.
moreover, the stronger ones need to help the weaker with
occasional 'oxygen masks.'

spending their time with wholesome, encouraging friends,
reading their bible, listening to "whatever is good, noble, and
pure" will build them up.  (phil. 4:8)  it will also protect them.

so what is my unbelievable present?  a husband whose heart
is completely given to us, protecting us, and continuously
encouraging us.

love,
lea

ps....and a teeny, tiny porcelain vase of red roses!