If It’s Monday, It’s Mama 

B is for Beneloventia and Betty….. 

Life changes at the foot of the Cross….. 

Life is forever altered at the foot of a beloved Papaw’s grave…….may all those lessons you have learned this past week as you celebrate the life of your precious Papaw be put on fire in your heart and in your spirit and in your life. 

As we enter our fourth year of “If It’s Monday, It’s Mama”, I decided to start each week’s blog with a letter of the alphabet, so this is Week “B”.  By year’s end, we will have gone through the alphabet two times. 

 

B is for Benevolentia and Betty (Mamaw)

Benevolentia is Latin for kindness and benevolence, which is what you witnessed among your family this weekend as you laid to rest your 85 year old Papaw.  When one is drawn to the foot of another’s grave, in the lives of most people, grace for one another replaces all that which is opposite of grace.  unLove becomes LOVE, unForgiveness becomes FORGIVENESS, unCharity becomes Charity for one another.  And, those who embraced Him, act on this. 

Beneloventia…..Goodwill…..Endearment 

You were blessed to witness these things this weekend as you lay your Papaw James McKenzie to rest.  Little kindnesses and generosities…..warmer hugs…..people reaching out who had not before.  All in the name of family and all in honor of Papaw. 

I challenge you…..don’t let your Benevolentia stop now that the flowers cover the grave of your Papaw and life has moved to the first and second and third…..sixth day after his going home. 

Keep alive that sweetness and tenderness you felt as you were honoring him.  Don’t wait for others to lead you.  And, share it with others.

You became a woman the day you laid your Papaw in the ground just as your brothers became men.   

Be womanly and Godly in your life as you move forward…..in honor of your Papaw and in HIS name…. 

Did you know that Betty is the feminine diminutive for Elizabeth?  So, you and your Mamaw Betty are connected via your names….and, I think that is why you have always had a special place in her heart as “her sweetie girl” and as Papaw’s “my girl.” 

Mamaw is on a road she has not traveled before.  She has watched her sisters journey alone but it is different when you take to the path on your own. 

And, while she is one of the strongest women I know, I am touched by how you have reached out to her during your Papaw’s passing.  You did a good job trying to get to see her over the holidays, standing up to your employer in insisting you have Thanksgiving off so you would be with them and then again battling for Christmas to be with Grammy and Poppy.    

Precious are the things you and Mamaw have shared this past week….little memory gifts from God bonding granddaughter to grandmother all the rest of the days of your life and teaching you all along the way how to be a good grandmother when it becomes your time. 

I know you cherish sleeping those first two nights with your Mamaw, listening to her speak of Papaw and other sacred Mamaw/Granddaughter things, some of which you have shared and some of which you hold close to your heart, as you should. 

I am grateful for the late night calls you are making to your Mamaw when you know she is alone and lost…those hours alone before bedtime where she would  normally spend time with Papaw.  Hearing your laughter as you speak to her is precious music to my ears.  Keep it up…..keep calling and sharing and loving….. 

It will be a gift you treasure always…..these moments with your grandparents….all of them. 

I love you, Daughter.  I love everything about you.  Your sweet spirit, your Godly heart, even your times of weak humanity because I can see you striving to do better, to persist, to grow. 

THAT is what life is about….growing….striving with one another and being kind and compassionate and loving to one another through the journey. 

Benevolentia. 

Blessings,

 

ILYAOYMC,

Mama

PS.  This week's Monday became Tuesday because I journed to Paintsville to pay respects to your Papaw and visit your little brother, Joseph and to pray.  It was the bitter-sweetest journey ever.  Thanks for your support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Heritage is in the Lord…. 

 

As I look around our home, I see photos of old people staring at me from our walls.  Some don’t like them, thinking them forbidding or forlorn or mayhap even scary at times. 

 

 Here is what I see:
 

Heritage 

Both Ian and I come from the stock of family which loves the Lord and which has chosen His Word as the foundation of our lives, our family’s lives…. 

And, as God wakes up my self this morning, first thoughts coming from my head are a desperate plea for His help to help me mother better, parent better, lay down HIS word on the hearts of my worldly self, my world children, my worldly home, so that we, too, will be strong stones on the walk of our forefather’s heritage.

My great fear? 

That while my children know of God, they do not know God. 

So easy when they are little and a captive audience to sing, and pray, and talk all Jesus.

To share His mighty battle stories and have ears turned to listen with rapt attention.

So easy to set them to “Bible Man” singing and stomping out “Being in the Lord’s Army”. 

Sweet and simple it is to fold their little hands and pray; to clap hands and shout at the top of their voices, “Jesus loves me”. 

I long for a re-do on those days where I held captive their little growing, Godly hearts all pliant and bending and willing.  When their every moment was an immersion into the love of Christ, the heart of Christ, the will of Christ.

For it is a much less simple thing to cause them to realize God’s great provision when they grow into their age and into their world.

I write and write and write, pouring out my soul’s longing on pen and paper, laying down my hopes and dreams for my children to read when I am no longer here to guide. 

But for 2013, what I long most for is to teach and teach and teach God’s word, God’s will, God’s love to my children. To live it more….daily….now, where they can see and hear and learn and be changed. 

I claim that verse, “(Isaiah 55:10-11) For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: (11) So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent.

I claim His promise that anything which comes from Him will not return void but will accomplish that which He pleases… 

And, not only that is accomplishes, but that it prospers His purpose. 

I claim it.  I claim it.  I claim it. 

And, I seek His ways….how does a mother of a twenty-two year old and two seventeen year olds reach into their hearts where God’s Word has been planted and pull it out right where they can see and remember and live it? 

I have good children.  Great children. 

And, if I ever doubted their tender hearts, those doubts were laid to rest this weekend as pain and sorrow became their guiding lights as they buried their sweet Papaw.  Love overflowed in our home…words were sweet, comfort real, tears few, but Jesus was present in the hearts of my children….all of HIM. 

As I set them on a path with their Dad to go bury their Papaw, I wept for things broken, lost and unredeemed in the lives of my children.  Would there be no hope, I would just lay my head down and sleep with Papaw right there on that Eastern Kentucky mountain and, right still, sleep between him and my heavenly deposit named baby Joseph Matthew Scott McKenzie. 

But, there is hope, and it is that hope I claim today in the lives of mine…and my children’s. 

Hope that “never will he leave us nor forsake us”, even when we fall short.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:37-30

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

I claim that future and that hope…..

I claim it for myself, my husband but especially I claim it for my children…

I was moved recently by the words of a favorite sister blogger, Ann Voscamp…..when she said in that intimate way she speaks, that there are only a few people who truly know her heart from the inside out….God….and because of God, our children.

I love that vision…

God creates our heart and places it in our earthly bodies and then knits those souls of our children right there inside where they, too, for a brief season, come to know our hearts, “from the inside.”

Powerful, powerful thought.

Wonderous, wonderous gift.

A treasure to be nurtured and cared for and loved.

So, as I head into 2013 with this exquisite picture in my head and on  my heart of my obligation to Him and to them, my children, I am prayerfully asking Him  to show me all of the ways I need to be…..to bring more of Him into the lives of my semi-adult children while I still have them in  my home.

Here is a start….I share with you and ask you to pray for me and our family….

What can you expect God to do in your life in 2013? Some pretty incredible things. You can expect:

• God’s mercies to follow you, and pursue you, every every minute of every hour of every day. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. ” (Psalm 23:6)
• God to meet every single true need that should arise. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)
• God to lead you, counsel you, guide you, and give you wisdom. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
• God to freely forgive your sins each time you repent. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
• God to wonderfully correct and discipline you if you should stray into sin. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Hebrews 12:6)
• God to continue working powerfully in you as you pursue holiness. “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13)
• God to help you overcome patterns of sin that have plagued you for years. “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. ” (Romans 6:14)
• God to use trials in your life to refine and purify your faith. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
• God to give you every good thing. “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

God has promised to do all these things, and many more. His promises are sure. 2013 is bursting with blessings                                    by Stephen Altrogge on January 1, 2013

I claim these actions from God (of which the list would be so endless), and in faith that He will help me, I promise Him in return to seek him more….with all of my heart, my body and my soul.  I ask Him to grow in me a deeper passion for His Word, His work and a stronger understanding of His love.

I seek simplicity in my daily life and an order which places Him and His word first on my heart each morning as I first awake.

I seek His guidance to those right passages which will guide my day.

I seek Him fostering in my a heart for prayer before my feet would hit the floor each day.

And, I ask Him not to just cover me with HIM, but to empty me of me and to pour fully from toes to top of head, HIM so that there is no room for a single morsel of anything which is NOT….Him.

And, I pray for diligent, permanent and deep-rooted change in my heart which is so evident, so redeeming, so tender and changing and loving that my children, at the core of their very being are changed as well.

I call for what dear friend and God-soldier  Austin French told me on May 11, 2010, when others were silent to me….”Lesa, pray for change….undo this thing…..redo it rightly….and pray that God would use you to do radical changes for GOOD for GOD.”  He and his wife Belinda, right there, in their car, stopped and prayed and encouraged me and another for change in our lives, our marriage, our children and our home. 

I weep now that I, did not understand Austin’s meaning, caught up in sorrow and pain and fear which leaving seemed the only survival path.  But, now, I understand….and, now I pick myself up from my face-down position on the ground, in faith and hope and understanding that there is more He calls me/us to do.

And, it starts today….and tomorrow and all the days from this day hence…

Give it over…not just a part, but the whole…of everything.

God requires it all….

Pray that for me, for my family.

That we give our all…..to Him.

So, that one hundred years from now when young children walk the halls of their ancestor’s home, the faces of their unknown family, their heritage, they can KNOW that these flesh and blood people who walked this earth before them

Knew HIM…

I want that for myself.  I want my children to know HIM, to know I know HIM…..so that their children will come to be in HIM.

It is my most sincere wish for the hearts God gave to me, the ones who know my heart from the inside…that they know His heart from all sides.

Blessings,

Lesa