Heavenly Homemakers

Cheesy Potato Soup, Tossed Salad and Fresh Homemade Whole Wheat Bread. That’s what the boys and I (mostly the I part of the boys and I) made for lunch today.

Our lunches aren’t usually quite this special, but we were very excited about the guests joining us today we wanted to treat them right. A turkey sandwich just didn’t feel right.

Today’s guests were Joel Osborne and Ben Berry. Our family has been praying for them every night for the past five years while they’ve been in Sendai, Japan doing mission work.

What Matt and I loved most about the privilege of sharing a meal today with Joel and Ben (besides the encouragement that being with fellow believers brings) was the lesson it brought to our boys. They’ve prayed for the “Sendai Team” daily since they were babies (or so). We talk about the mission work to them. They’ve put some of their very own money in the special collection plates taken up to support them. We’ve sent treats at Christmastime. How great to have them in our home today so that our boys can see with their own eyes part of the real live Sendai Team!

How great for our boys to hear some of the stories. How great for them to have Joel and Ben ask them questions about their lives. How great for them to watch and listen as we shared and prayed together for God’s direction.

So, what a great lunch!

Hmm. What was for lunch anyway?

Make God a part of everything you do. 

How do we do that?  I’m learning as I go.  I have friends who are great examples of this.  I’ll share some things that I’ve seen them do.

 At Christmas time last year, I made homemade hot fudge and put it in lovely jars and drove around town with my kids delivering them to our friends.  When we got to Don and Susan’s, here’s what happened: Don was at work so he wasn’t there (I realize that seems trivial, but keep reading).  Benjamin, age 7 (who is great friends with my two older boys) came running out of the house to talk; Julia, age 4 (who had been playing dress up and was wearing a very thin princess dress) came running out to talk to my third son.  Susan (the mom) came out to say thank you for the lovely hot fudge sauce, wearing a short-sleeved shirt.   And Audrey, age 2, stayed behind in the house to stay warm (did I mention it was very cold outside than evening?).  So, I’m sitting in my nice warm van while Susan in her short sleeves and Julia in her princess dress and Benjamin (who was too excited to be cold) stood outside and we chatted for a while.  After a few minutes, they were getting chilly and we said our goodbyes.  They got up to their front door and guess what?  Locked.  Benjamin ran over to the side door.  Locked.  Benjamin climbed the fence and ran to the back door.  You guessed it, locked.  Yeah, with a two year old alone in the house and three cold people outside.  (This is the part where I felt like such a nice person and such a good friend.)  So, Benjamin hops into the van with me and we go try to find Don at work (I told you that was important information).  It took some doing to track him down and I won’t go in to all of that, but we finally did and he went and unlocked the door and everyone went in. 

I arrive back on the scene with my kids and Benjamin.  We all run into the house so that I can apologize for the 53^rd time because I feel so bad for causing all of this (it really was that they had just bought a new door and it had a weird lock or something that they weren’t used to, but I still felt really bad).  Susan already had Audrey calmed down, mostly because they had been talking through the window very loudly while I was gone tracking down Don. 

I’m all ready to start discussing what had happened and again how bad I felt about it, when I see Susan has the kids gathered around her (she didn’t even have all the goose bumps under control yet for being outside in December for 15 minutes in short sleeves).  She then launches into a spiritual application of what just happened- being locked out.  She talks to the kids about having hearts that are locked and won’t let Jesus in and how we have to open up our hearts with the right key so that He can be a part of our lives.  Wow.  She’s good. 

A few months later, I saw her do it again (not the getting locked out of her house part, the making a spiritual application part).   An old house on the church property was going to be demolished this particular morning.  I have four boys- we had to go watch.  The whole way over, my boys are talking about really deep subjects like destroying things and what kind of machine it must take to knock over a whole house and other things of violent nature.  I’m used to it by now- it doesn’t phase me.  Anyway, when we got there, several other families were there with the same idea of entertainment for the morning (small town- doesn’t take much to excite us here).  Susan was there with her kids.  She’s just finishing a discussion with her kids about how this will happen to their house someday when it gets too old to be lived in, and how this world is not our home and houses are just houses.  Moth and rust corrupts, thieves break in and steal.  Don’t make for yourselves treasures on this earth, etc.  I hadn’t even thought of that.  We were just going to have some fun.  I’ve learned so much from my friends like Susan.  It’s really not hard to talk about God and his will for our lives all throughout the day in many circumstances.  Everything can have a spiritual application.  It doesn’t have to be a planned time when your munchkins are sitting angelically around the table and you announce that  “it is now time to learn about God.”  Grab opportunities when you see them, say your 30 seconds of encouragement and teaching, then let them get back to making mud pies.  The more you do it, the easier it gets.  Watch out, your kids will start coming up with their own spiritual applications before you know it!