Please hear me out before you roll your eyes at me. It’s too hard. Or it’s soooo boring. I would like to suggest The Bible. Even if you don’t practice Christianity, The Bible has it all.
Murder: Genesis 4 – This story takes sibling rivalry to a whole new level. 10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”
Stories that make you WHAT? Judges 19 “29 When he reached home, he got a knife. He cut up his concubine. He cut her into 12 pieces. He sent them into all the territories of Israel.” Yes, you read that right. He cut his concubine up into 12 pieces. I’ll let you read the whole story to find out why.
Love: The Song of Solomon is a love poem. All the mushy gushy lovey stuff.
Lust: 2 Samuel 11 2 “One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,”. King David saw, liked, got and had a man killed because he couldn’t keep his lust under control.
More things that make you got HMMM: Genesis 19: 33 “That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.”
This is just the Old Testament.
There is so much in The Bible that I completely (as a Christian) don’t understand. Parts that make so mad. Hurt my feels. And as a woman, offended. But isn’t that the hallmark of a great book? They make us feel things.
Do you have a favorite story from the Bible? Feel free to share in the comments.
The following night when he got home, Esther was full of excitement. Dinner was almost done. They were going to have the soup from the night before. While the cornbread was in the oven, they set out to test their project. He had brought two pairs of safety goggles from school and she had set up the materials on the back porch. As the timer ticked away for the cornbread, they filled a balloon (each) half way with baking soda. Then put ½ cup of vinegar into their bottles. Very carefully, they placed the balloon over the mouth of the bottles making sure that none of the baking soda fell in. The next step was to raise the balloon so that the baking soda would fall into the vinegar. It bubbled and fizzed as the balloon filled with air.
Oscar was watching Esther more than he was watching the chemical reaction. She was like a little kid, giggling as the balloon filled with gas. “Do you know what is happening here?”
“It’s a chemical reaction, I know that much.”
“The baking soda and vinegar are creating an acid-base reaction. These two chemicals together are creating carbon dioxide.”
“And carbon dioxide is filling the balloon.”
“Exactly.”
“This is so cool.” She patted her hands together like she had won a prize.
“Baking soda being the base and vinegar being the acid.”
“I like it.”
The timer went off. “The world is always needing good science teachers and with your base in geography, you would be great at it.”
“Thank you my love, but you’re forgetting one very important thing.”
He raised an eyebrow, “and that would be?”
She winked, “I hate kids.” The timer when off and she hopped into the house to get the cornbread out of the oven as he put away the science experiment.
This is my last post in a series; Forgiveness in progress
“Remember, when you forgive, you heal. And when you let go, you grow.”
Another post card in the mail. For a moment there, you had me on a nail. ~ Until I used my brain instead of my heart. Do you enjoy tearing things apart? ~ Ace didn’t write that. How many times have you thrown a spat, ~ ‘cause cursive isn’t taught in school any more? Yelp, you had me on a hook. For sure. ~ Use Ace to get to me, manipulation at its finest. Wouldn’t you agree? I would think a different form of communication would be more of a guarantee? ~ Forgive? I can do that. Healing takes time. There is so much for me to combat. ~ Some wounds I will carry for the rest of my life. What about that strife? ~ Not everything was bad. Which just makes me sad. ~ This doesn’t open any line of communication. I have not reached that station. ~ Dialogue can change everything. Are you open to the storm that could bring? ~ I don’t think either of us are. Me by far. ~ Would you even listen? Try to understand my position? ~ I haven’t found that place. Still shoveling out a space. ~ From the 4 stages of forgiveness, I’m still identifying all the hurt. My childhood is a brown hole full of dirt. ~ Our whole family is a jacked up mess. Manipulation, attention seeking, hot mess stress. ~ Our family dynamic could buy any therapist a mega yacht. For generations, forward and backwards, sprouting from this lot. ~ I don’t think either of us fully understands the degree, of what a crap-tastic childhood did to me. ~ This makes twice you have used someone else to achieve your desire. What’s next, a hitman for hire? ~ God will let me know when it’s time. He will let me know when things are prime. ~ This isn’t about you. I’m sure that makes you stew. ~ Well, simmer. I’m still trying to find a glimmer. ~ It stopped being all about you when you chose to bring a child into this world. You weren’t ready for all life unhurled? ~ Who among us is? Too bad you didn’t think about that before you crawled inside his. ~ How did you think this would play out? 50 years later, I’m still fighting this bout.
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
I enjoy writing. Winter Season is the most recent story I have been working on. At the end of this post, I will include links to my last post and the first one for this work. Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Winter Season
Honor Thy Parents
“I do. If I may, how’s the Bible study coming?”
“I don’t have the heart.”
“I found something if you would like to read it.”
He asked, “read it to me?”
“I found this on a blog by a lady calling herself Chico’s mom. I’ve read all of her work up to this point. Looks like she’s had a tumultuous relationship with her family.
‘Honor thy parents
Being a Christian isn’t easy. Trying to find that right balance of honoring God with your life but at the same time not pushing others away from being curious about God or Christianity is delicate. I have no desire to tell you your life is a mess when mine is a different mess. I would like to share with you some of my struggles. Maybe you are going through the same thing.
A friend of mine is going to seminary. I have learned so much through him. I am so grateful that he is sharing his knowledge about the Bible.
The piece below I wrote because this is a real struggle in my life. It’s very therapeutic for me to research and write about issues. Most I have zero control over. But I write anyway.
Honor thy parents
The 10 commandments:
‘Exodus 20:12 honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God give thee.’
I honestly struggle with this. How? How do you honor a parent that let bad things happen to you? How!
Some children had a Norman Rockwell childhood. This makes me happy for you. Somehow, I feel like you are in the minority. If I read the chart correctly, chfs.ky.gov had over 550,000 reported cases of child mistreatment in 2020.
One answer I got was, “Respect that you exist because of them. God doesn’t make mistakes.” How! How do you respect a person?
Let God deal with it? Sure. This is the best way. Because we are human, Satan will use this to guilt us. Prod us. And make us think we are bad because honor takes on many different forms. Many children honor their parents by taking on the same career path. Others show honor with material possessions: a new house, a new car. Or maybe they show honor by naming a child after a parent.
What about children that were victims of child abuse? How do they honor their parents in the eyes of God that represents the spirit of this commandment?’
“I’m only human. I did the best I could.” Well your best sucked!
You are toxic. You are hurtful.
So what to do?
1. Forgive them. (Ephesians 4:32) I could have started off with an easy one. Forgiveness is hard. It we are forgiving ourselves or others. Forgiveness does not excuse bad behavior, nor does it permit future bad behavior.
2. Be grateful. You might ask, grateful for what? You are alive. Pewresearch.com estimates 930,160 abortions were preformed in 2020 nationwide (US). You may not be setting the world on fire. Life might be a great struggle. You are here.
3. Share Grace. (Titus 3:7) More hard work. But look what Jesus did for me and you. If we accept him as our Lord and savior, he died on a cross for me and you.
4. Love them: (Matthew 5:43-48) No one is saying invite them to your house for Christmas dinner. Or loan them a million dollars. Love comes in many forms.
5. Pray for them. Prayer is our direct line of communication with God. Pray for your ‘bad’ parents. Pray for yourself as well. Ask God to show you the right way to be at peace with a craptastic childhood.
6. If you are a parent, don’t say bad things about your parents in front of your children. They might think this is the way they should talk about you. (Proverbs 22:6)
As Christian children we have to do all the work. But that’s okay. All of the listed above are actions to be taken. Work to be done. These are steps children should take so that they can be healthy physically, mentally and emotionally.
Can’t do it alone. No you can’t. God, friends, preachers, trusted family, therapist, are in this world to help children move in a positive direction. Closer to God. Closer to healing.
*pewresearch.com
*Real Faith by Mark Driscoll
*The Bible
*Chfs.ky.gov
*Ask Pastor John: How can I honor my parents if I don’t respect them?”
He sat in silence for a while. Esther added, “she’s never been diagnosed but she feels like she has Cinderella Effect.”
“What’s Cinderella Effect?”
Esther closed her laptop. “From what I can tell, it’s where one child is treated differently from the other children. Kinda like Cinderella in relation to her step sisters.”
Esther was sitting on the couch when her phone chimed alerting her to an incoming text message. It was Oscar. ‘Just found out we are havin’ a meeting tonight. Have no idea what time I will be home. These things usually only last an hour though. No one wants to be here too long. Will call on my way home. I love you, O’
She sent him a heart in response.
She had made a pot of soup for dinner, so him being late wasn’t a problem. All she had to do was put the cornbread in the oven. It was 3:45 when she got the text; it was 8:00 when he called her.
“Hi honey.”
“Hi,” his voice was weak.
“You sound killed. Do you want to even fool with dinner?”
“Let’s not and say we did.”
“Okay. Do you need this time to unwind?”
“No, I would like for you to help keep me alert.”
“What shall we talk about?”
“What am I going to do with five cases of vinegar?” His voice was deflated.
“Where on Earth did you get five cases of vinegar?”
“Someone donated them to the school and the family resource director thought it would be a good idea to give them to me.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“Do you have enough to give each student a bottle?”
“No.”
“That would start a fight if you gave some and not all.”
“You’re tellin’ me.”
“What about a class project and make vinegar the bases?”
“That could work.” She thought his voice lighten a little.
“Do you do science fairs?”
“The school does but I have very little to do with them. If I have a student ask me for help, I am more than willin’. But no, I’m not doing that again.”
“What happened?”
He let out a long sigh, “for the first five years that I taught, we had fairs. I was gong ho and organized them. The last year that I did it, everyone of the students got a first prize ribbon in something: most creative project, best lay out, best idea, most challenging, every student walked away from that fair with a ribbon of some kind. I think it undermines the whole experience if everyone gets a ribbon. And I was banned by the school board for giving an overall first place or best overall ribbon.”
“Wow! Education has changed a lot since I was in school.”
“I’m so tired Ess.”
“What can I do to help?”
She could hear him smile, “just keep being your wonderful self.”
“Honey, when you get home, go to bed. Take a nap. Rest for a while.”
“I’m in the drive.”
“What would you like to do?”
“I’m coming to you.” She opened the door and watched him walk across the street. He walked like a man defeated. When she closed the door behind him, he hugged her up. “You feel so good.”
“I’m so sorry you had a taxin’ day.” After a long hug, he let her go. She caressed his face. “Why don’t you lay down and take a nap? Dinner can wait.”
He kissed her on the forehead and crashed.
While he napped, she looked up things he could do with five cases of vinegar. After half an hour, she went to check on him. He was sound asleep. She smiled to herself. He looked so peaceful. The stress of the day didn’t show on his face. She took an extra blanket from the closet and covered him up. As if she hadn’t already figured it out; she was in love. She could get used to the idea of curling up to him every night. A smiled crept across her face but she couldn’t give in to the idea. There was still a cloud of doom hanging over her head. It wouldn’t have taken much for her to let her head fill with assumptions but she blocked them out.
She was sitting on the end of the couch looking up stuff he might be able to use for his class when she felt him kiss her on the head.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised.
“Yeah, why not?”
He set beside of her, “what have you found?”
“These are just ideas, you’re not gonna hurt my feelings if these don’t work okay. You know more about what you’re allowed to do than I.”
He smiled, “you got it.”
“Give me some parameters.”
“It will be easier just to tell me what you’re thinkin’.”
She shrugged, “okay. What if each student researched and came up with a project using vinegar as their main ingredient? Have them do the project in front of the class and logged the outcomes. How well did it work? How much did it cost? Was it fun? What were some of the challenges you had? What did you learn?”
Oscar sat there for a moment thinking, “I like it but I think it would be too time consuming. That would be more of a semester long project. Something I could do a mid-term or a final over.”
She was shocked, “mid-terms and finals?”
“Getting them ready for college.”
There was a sour look on her face, “they will get enough of that in college.”
“Amen!”
“Well, you could break them up into groups. However, I don’t like the idea of breakin’ the class up into groups. I hated workin’ in groups when I was in school. Inevitably, one person ended up doin’ all the work.”
“I agree but administration eats that up. It is getting them ready for the work place.” He scoffed.
She raised an eyebrow, “indeed. And again, one person ends up doin’ all the work. If you want to keep a controlled environment, what about this project?” On her lap top, she had found the following project: How to inflate a balloon using baking soda and vinegar. Each student would need a balloon, small clean clear glass bottle, small funnel, baking soda, and vinegar. There was a list of key questions for the students to be looking for as they conducted the experiment and instructions on how to do it.
“I really like that. It will deviate from my lesson plan and I will have to get it approved but I really like that.”
“Cool.” Esther wiggled in her seat. “I think it would be great fun to try it.”
He raised an eyebrow, “really?” She smiled shaking her head. He put his arm around her and kissed her. “You are amazing.”
“Well, you know.” She giggled.
“Tomorrow when I get home, let’s try it and see what happens.”
“Yeah,” she beamed with a smile.
“I think I owe that little kid an apology.”
“What little kid?”
“The resource director had one of the students bring that to me and I wasn’t the friendliest person in the world.”
She rubbed his arm, “I know you’ll do the right thing.”
Poetry & More 