Stress Day 1: Prayer - It's Not Just For Night time

I loved this chapter!  In fact, it has been my absolute favorite in the 7 book so far.  The food and the clothing chapters both helped me to be mindful of how much we have and how much we eat.  Existing on seven foods and with seven pieces of clothing for longer than a week with five kids is not sustainable for me (It wasn't for Hatmaker, either).

This chapter on stress, specifically on prayer and on keeping the Sabbath is a keeper.  Hatmaker saved the best for last in my opinion.  In the beginning of the chapter she discusses the need for the Sabbath and how keeping the Sabbath is not for God's benefit, but it is for our own.  How often I forget that.  I have Sunday down as a day of rest but I end up going grocery shopping or after church, coming in here to the office to create my schedule for the week, to grade reflections, to get a head start on the week's assignments.  Then I wonder why I am exhausted on Monday!

Hatmaker lists Hebrews 4:9-11 "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.  (Heb. 4:9-11).

I know with every fiber of my being come Friday that my body needs rest.  I also  know with a look around me at every room in my house that on Saturday laundry needs to be done, along with dishes, and grocery shopping, and cleaning, and of course, some time to run and play and be free!!!!!

Come Sunday, it is time for rest; time for reflection; time for us to stop and take measure of the week He has blessed us with.  Time to rest and be still and know that He is God.  I have a canvas I bought several years ago that I keep above my desk in the office that says, "Be Still and Know That I Am God."  When I am busy typing, reading, writing, researching, planning on the laptop I can look directly up and be reminded who I am in Christ, and who I serve.

Scripture says if we love God we will keep His commandments.  Christ teaches us that every commandment was given because He loves us.  Rest is a good thing.  The older I get the more I am convinced that a nap, that a quiet walk, or a peaceful porch swing rest are just about as close to heaven as you can get on earth.

I want to rededicate in my life and in the life of my family the sacredness of the Sabbath.  Please join me tomorrow as I share with you my journey through the different prayer times that Hatmaker suggests.

Sincerely,
Dawn

Explanation of the Out of Order Blog Posts

This summer has been a gift for Heather and for me, both individually and collectively.  Heather recently finished an inspirational three day bike ride to Charleston in ridiculous heat to raise money for a worthy cause.  This bike ride was the culminating event for a season of training to prepare her body for riding major miles three days straight.

For me, I spent June at the Spartanburg Writing Project, which for fourteen years has been a blessing professionally and personally and I pray each summer that I am able to give the best I have to the teachers who join us.  In July the Mitchell family had our first major vacation. It was epic!  Fifteen days out west to Yellowstone and to the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead.  It changed me.  It changed us.  It was a powerful time for self reflection and for time together.  I know I am a better parent and a better person for it.

Together, Heather and I embarked the first week of June on the book study, Seven by Jenn Hatmaker.  For the few of you who have followed us on the blog, you know the ways this book has challenged us to live what we truly believe, and to live less of what the world offers.  It has changed me.

With two teachers who have less than two weeks before our students come to class, we knew we were short on time but long on the desire to finish 7 strong.  For that reason, we decided to skip the chapters on Waste and Spending.  One, I married an Environmental Engineer and we don't waste much.  Two - Heather and Frac live in the country as well and grow a garden too, and work minimize their carbon footprint.

We skipped spending, not because we don't need to grow in this area - it's just that with back to school coming we are both spending money preparing our classrooms and on our own children's back to school.  I definitely was mindful not to over-indulge but the teacher salary scale helps to reduce a lot of overspending in that area.

We wanted to end our summer and begin our teaching careers this year reading the chapter on stress.  We thought it was appropriate.

Sincerely,
Dawn and Heather

Stress: Day 1 - Exhale

I always had this ideal image of what a true, hardcore, Christian prayer warrior looked like. - a black suit and tie (wearing his best for God, ya know), a massive ten-pound Bible nearby for reference, and either pacing back and forth shouting loudly to the sky, or kneeling by the bed with hands clasped tightly together in complete silence.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit; but the point is that I've never looked in the mirror and seen a mighty intercessor looking back at me. Prayer has always been my weak spot. I love reading the Bible and Christian commentaries on the Bible. I love reading about the history of Bible times and the meanings and symbols of Scripture. I enjoy reflecting on holy words and their applications. I feel like I'm good at that sort of stuff. I enjoy praying too, but... I often forget to do it. Or when I do, it doesn't feel like it's good enough, long enough, strong enough, etc. etc. etc. 

This is the final week for Seven. Due to pre-planned vacations, bike rides, and other assorted life events, Dawn and I kind of flubbed through chapters 6 and 7 together ("Waste" and "Spending" - good topics!). However, we agreed that chapter seven on "Stress" was of the utmost importance to us both, especially the week before school goes back into full swing.
It would take a really long time to explain the whole chapter in detail (seriously, just go read the amazing book yourself!), but I will try to sum it up for you.
Hatmaker points out all the important facets of rest that are illustrated in the Bible. Suffice to say that if God, who never sleeps, rested on the seventh day of creation, then we need to rest too. But it isn't just about the Sabbath. Hatmaker references the importance of prayer throughout each day to focus us, ground us, and redirect us to the Prince of Peace. In so doing, we keep stress at bay, refusing it a foothold in our day. She based her seventh month on a work called Seven Sacred Pauses by Marine Wiederkehr. I haven't read that one, so I'm just going to take Hatmaker's word for it and follow her example. The title basically explains itself. The day is to be broken into seven prayerful pauses, each with its own specific purpose:

The Night Watch (midnight)
The Awakening Hour (dawn)
The Blessing Hour (midmorning)
The Hour of Illumination (noon)
The Wisdom Hour (midafternoon)
The Twilight Hour (early evening)
The Great Silence (bedtime)

I began the week today with The Great Silence, around 9:00 pm. It was just me, God, the great outdoors, and Psalm 23. And it was beautiful. Peaceful. Restorative. And so quiet. I didn't pray long - maybe ten minutes - but as I finished by reading the 23rd Psalm out loud, I saw things in a new light. THIS was the image of a prayer warrior - flip-flops,  jeans, and a tshirt surrounded by lightning bugs and mosquitos, humbly approaching His throne via the front porch steps, a crumpled Bible,  and a hunger for more.

I'm looking forward to this week of prayer and a heavenly focus because I so desperately need to get my focus off myself.

Now I just have to see if I can make it to midnight...

-Heather

Dawn's Post for Week 5: Staying Green

After reading month five titled, "Waste" that encouraged readers to become Greene through growing gardens, reducing waste, and recycling I realized that we've been green for awhile. We definitely can be greener but I feel pretty good about where I am with this one and after talking with Heather she and I felt that we could read, reflect, and consider ways to reduce our carbon footprint. We both have gardens. We expanded ours this year to include tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, corn, okra, eggplant, bell peppers, jalepenos, banana peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, blackberries, blueberries, green beans, Lima beans, and crowder peas. It's a lot of work but I really do love it for many reasons. One it gives us a family work project. Everyone helps. The girls help weed and water. Eli loves to pick the vegetables and check on their progress every day.  We eat what we pick fresh and what's left we can, putting up salsa and tomatoes, pickles, and jam lines up in jars on our shelves in the garage. We freeze gallon bags of corn, squash, and zucchini as well as bags of strawberries we pick at a farm right up he road. We have nine chickens we keep in a coop in the backyard we call the ladies parlor that yields fresh eggs each day and free fertilizer. We give what we don't keep away to neighbors and friends and family and are grateful for the fruit and the harvest. I married an environmental engineer who loves the outdoors so we rinse out and recycle as much paper, plastic, and aluminum that we can. I have to say there are times that I forget or get lazy and toss and I feel guilty for it. I'm working on not taking the blessings of convenience for granted.

In Hatmaker's book 7 she quotes a passage from a text that convicted her titled, Green Mama by Tracey Bianchi.  It convicted me too. It reads:  "there are a limited number of resources in the world, and when we take more than we need, simply put, we are stealing from others.  By pillaging the earth for more than our share, we break the 8th commandment. To my dismay, I realize that even in my own, sort of green-world , I was stealing from people, present and future. Turns out I constantly steal from my kids in years. I'm static goodies like clean air and water while millions of families clamor for a drink and struggle with disease.  I'm throwing away excess paper and packaging for rain forest disappear. I am a kleptomaniac. But I am determined to address my failings."

I am too. I don't want to waste my time feeling proud of what little I am doing for the environment. I want to proactively look for ways I can continue to reduce. Less of me, more of Christ. Less waste, more to enjoy His creation.

I know we are in the middle of a two week vacation but we are trying to apply good stewardship out here too.
On our trip west we opted for real dishes that we wash by hand in a bucket of sudsy water at the campsite instead of easier paper plates. This may be a little too crunchy for some, but my girls love it and have made a game of pretending to be Mary and Laura off of Little House who wash their dishes outside on the prairie too.
While we can certainly do better and live greener my hope is that we will stay green, going outdoors for our road trips both near and far, choosing to spend time in some of what nature offers us that may not be here forever, to admire God's handiwork, and most of all, to spend as much time as possible together as a family.

Media: Day 5 - "Take my advice..."

As I mentioned previously, I am thankful that my parents helped me realize at a young age that TV wasn't everything and kept it from scrambling my young mind. In that same vein, I'd like to mention some advice my aunt offered me on our recent family trip. She said, in regards to Rowan and with much experience under her belt, "Don't get him started on video games... They were a great babysitter, but now I regret it." (My paraphrase)
Spoken from a mom who has been there, who has seen the deleterious effects of "too much" on her child. She wishes she had been more firm in that area .

With the bombardment of screens of all shapes and sizes EVERYWHERE, it will be hard to keep Rowan away from it all the time;  but I shall take her advice and my parents' example to heart, and try my best to shield Rowan from all the time-suckers and mind-numbers. After all, discipline begins at home.

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
Proverbs 22:6

Media: Day 4 - Throw Away the Key

I am obviously very far behind here, but I will try to catch up.
My parents, sister, nephew, husband, son, and I went to Virginia over the weekend. We went to see all of my extended family - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - whom I hadn't seen in several years, and most of whom hadn't yet met Rowan. Aside from an annoying cold-like illness attacking my own little family, we had a wonderful time seeing everyone and catching up.

It is inevitable, on family trips like these, to look back and remember childhood memories. One such memory in regards to media resurfaced. Once upon a time my parents realized how much TV my sisters and I were watching and how it was affecting our chores, our attitudes, our schoolwork - you name it. So, they decided to take what my childhood self would consider drastic measures. Somehow my dad rigged our TV to only turn on with a key.
Yes, a key.
That fits in a lock.
I have no idea how he did it, but I do remember that magical key having a blue and gold Blockbuster key chain.

Once they fitted the television with a key, there was no way we could watch it without our parents knowing.  There was no way we could watch it without that darn key. My parents then proceeded to tell us we would only be allotted a certain amount of time each week to watch TV. We could choose to blow it all at once, or we could spread it out over the week, or we could simply choose not to watch it at all (yeah, right). Of course, our decision on when to watch was still subject to whether or not our parents would give us the key. It was ultimately their decision.
Being a first born and typically a rule-follower, I didn't struggle quite as much as my sisters in budgeting my TV time. I knew what and when my favorite shows were, so I saved my time for them. However, I learned some valuable lessons from that time too:
1) My parents are brilliant.
(Though the key trick probably wouldn't work on today's televisions)
2) A little patience goes a long way.
If I thought my favorite TV shows were really worth watching, then they were worth waiting for. This lesson has easily extended to all the important events in my later life, like money, marriage, children, career, faith, etc.
3) TV is a waste of time.
When constant screen time was taken away from me, it no longer held me hostage and it became more of a special treat rather than a "need." It's kind of like only having ice cream every once in awhile rather than every day. It makes it that much sweeter!

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for all of the 'key' lessons you taught me through the years. :D

Day 6 and 7 of Social Media - Pattern Change

As I reflect on the last two days of the social media challenge issued by Jen Hatmaker's book, 7 I felt that this one has hit the closet to home for me out of all of the first four weeks of this challenge.  I knew that I spent too much time scrolling and was craving more meaningful time spent especially with my children and with my husband.  It was moments of conviction but not enough time thoughtfully spent seeking a solution.

This past week with the reading of the chapter, consulting scripture, and the Holy Spirit's conviction on my heart I was able to move beyond conviction to repentance to turn from the mindless habit and turn my full attention towards things that mattered the most.

I couldn't quit cold turkey against all social media.  So much good comes out of being able to call a friend, send a prayer request, share in a productive way what Christ is doing in our lives... What I was called to do was to deeply consider the time spent, the purpose of the activity online, and the outcome...was it honoring God, was it productive, was it the Best Yes of my time and the time I spent away from those who depend on me?

If it was a no, it meant the phone had a place that wasn't attached to my hand, my mouth, or my body...it went in the basket.  This allowed me freedom from the pings of messages, emails unread, updates from news apps and target sales.  Freedom to think uninterrupted, to serve uninterrupted, to worship, and to live uninterrupted.  Funny thing was all that was breaking news, and a current urgent message survived the three to four hours I was away from the phone and it was in the basket.  I learned it will keep!

I am hoping these lessons learned this week will keep too.  I read awhile ago that it takes awhile for a new behavior to become a pattern and for a pattern to become a habit.  I've developed new behaviors with the basket and with boundaries and have kept the pattern for these last few days.  I'm praying now for a habit to form and my heart to be changed for the better.

Sincerely,
Dawn