Confusion

I'm really confused. I've been confused about something all my life I guess but those things were variable and didn't really matter. I mean, who really understands everything all the time? That's right, no one, even if I know a few people who would like us all to believe differently. :) But now I'm confused about religion. This is something I've never been confused about before. Well, maybe a little bit here and there but not like this. No, I'm not questioning my faith. My relationship with YHWH (God) is too real and important for that to happen so don't worry. I am learning more about God though and some times it doesn't seem to fit in with what I've always believed. On the other hand, I'm a little bit afraid that I may be learning some things that are not truth and falling for the lies. I know the answer to this confusion. Back to the Word. Stop relying on all the books and "authorities" out there and get back to what the Bible says. This past year has been quite a journey for us. I'm getting tired of this trek. I wish I knew when and where it was going to end. But wait, I DO know. I guess what I'm wondering is not about the end, but about the resting place that I feel I need now!

Time Flies

On Tuesday while I was at speech therapy with the little kids, K2 told me that someone had called about my 20 year class reunion. Surely he was wrong. I can't be having a 20 year reunion already! I did the math though and it adds up. Evidently the date has been set and the planning is taking place. I was told to join facebook to get all the details.

I've avoided facebook up until now. There have been a lot of reasons NOT to get involved in it. One of my children had a birth sister who was murdered by a man she met on MySpace. I guess that knowing that makes it easy to see why we've avoided all those social network sites like the plague. Of course I know that some great things can happen on them too but it's been kind of a memorial action (even though Ken and I never knew this child's birth sister), to remember for this child's sake. This morning I decided to go ahead and sign up. In some ways I'm sorry I caved and did it, but it mostly seems like it's a good thing. I can always delete the account if it becomes an issue.

During the sign up process, facebook automatically added "friends" who were already on my email lists. Then up popped dozens of people from my past too. We shared something in our profiles about schools and then facebook automatically matched them. Very interesting. Many of them are from my high school days but several from college days too.

I've spent too much time this morning looking at old pictures and profiles of those old acquaintance and friends. We've all changed! I grew up in a small town. Most of those people I knew my whole life. We started kindergarten together and then graduated together. Sure, a few new faces were added over the years and a few left but really we'd all been together for a long time.

I'm not sure how I feel about seeing all those "friends" again. Some of them I'd love to see, others I'd like to avoid. I was never and will never be the type to go along with society and do what's expected. I was always my own person in that I did my own thing. Since I've using so many cliches anyway, I danced to the beat of a different drum. I'm not saying I was rebellious in a negative way. I was a very good girl! That is an act of rebellion though when your peers are doing the opposite. In High School, that can be problematic.

Some of my own experiences in public school contribute to why we home school today. I did have some great school years! My 5th and 8th and 11th grade years were my best. I had some really bad years too. 3rd, 7th were terrible. The rest were just mediocre. That's not the way it should be. I'm not saying that we never have bad or difficult days here at home. We do! But, they always know that even when we are having those bad times, their teachers LOVE them, their classmates (siblings) LOVE them, and nothing else matters.

How Much My Heart Aches / Rejoices

Be forewarned. This is a controversial political post. If you don't agree with me, that's fine but do not post a comment. I will immediately delete any mean spirited comments.



Well, it's done. Last night we plugged the computer into our television so we could all watch the election results. I did not vote for either major candidate. I just couldn't. However, of the two I favored McCain. For months we've been lifting up our country to God in prayer. I KNOW He heard those prayers, He is still in control.

Last night I kept hearing Mr. Obama use quotes and references from our forefathers as though they would have supported his radical left wing doctrines. Yes, men have given their lives for this great country. They have sacrificed and fought and worked hard to make America great. The problem is, that I believe these same people whom Mr. Obama was quoting and talking about last night would be so very disappointed and down right angry. Not because of race! Because of the things Mr. Obama stands for. Our forefathers were independent people. They came to America to escape Big Government. They fought wars against dictators who allowed little liberty to their peoples. They gave their lives to give those oppressed peoples liberty. And now, we, the people of the United States, have elected a man who wants to make government very big and take away some of our liberties.

Is this a result of the revisions that have taken place in our text books? I don't know how Americans have forgotten that this country WAS founded on Biblical principles. To those who would argue that, go back and read the original documents! It's all there but you probably won't find it in a new text book.

And again, this has nothing to do with race! I'm the mom of children from an African heritage. I understand the desire to see people of color and a variety of ethnicity's in leadership. I applaud that! Way back in the 1990's I was excited about Mr. Alan Keyes. Mr. Voddie Baucham is an amazing teacher, but he doesn't seem to have political aspirations.

The media seems to want us to think that ALL people of African descent voted for Mr. Obama though. This election was unfortunately made into a racial race. I'm not saying that issues were completely ignored but they were to some degree. I can hardly fathom why many people, who I believe to love and serve the same God that I do, voted for a man who has said one of his first acts will to make late term or partial birth abortions (killing of babies!) legal to all no matter what age that woman might be. How is this good? Do you all realize that the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's goals was to get rid of what she thought was undesirable blacks and "white trash" minorities?! It seems to me that abortion is the ultimate bigotry! Why have so many forgotten these things?

In my own state of Washington, assisted suicide is now legal.

My heart aches for our country. Please have mercy of us Lord.

I come to the rejoicing part of my title now. Last night while we were watching the results and the presidency had been called, K3 spoke up and said, "No mommy! I want Jesus to be our president! He's MY president!" We tried to explain to her that Mr. Obama was going to be president of our country but Jesus was the president of our hearts. She'd have none of it. She still insists that Jesus is her president. Out of the mouth of babes...

A First

After 20 months of waiting, K4 was granted "Legally Free" status yesterday in court. While he is not adopted yet, this means that his birth parents no longer have any rights to him. From now on we will be working off of our open adoption agreement. That agreement is two visits a year, which WE supervise.

As much as I've struggled with this situation, I am glad that we can all move on. The weekly or every other week visits were taking place at birth parents' apartment, unsupervised. We could always anticipate K4 being very "chaotic" when we picked him up and this would last for a few days. I also feel like we can finally REALLY bond without interference and interruption from anyone.

Birth parents had told me that they didn't want his hair cut and until yesterday so I had to abide by their wishes. We could have gotten a court order to allow it but really, it was a non-issue. We want to maintain as good a relationship with birth parents as we can, so we waited ... and waited... and waited. Here's what we did last night to celebrate. (We didn't want to do too much of a celebration since we're also sad for birth parents even though we're happy for us!)

Doesn't he look handsome? I'm not a great hair cutter but this is an easy cut. K4 was relatively good about it. It only took me, K1 and K2 to hold him down. Just kidding! I cut, K1 (DH) distracted him and K2 took photos. He looks like a little boy now.

Yom Teruah

Well folks, we are feeling good about the new congregation we've been attending. It's only been a few weeks now but it feels like we've found what we've been missing. Our understanding of the Old Testament vs. the New Testament has drastically changed in the past few months. It's nice to have found a community of believers who understand this too. I'll try to get around to posting some of the changes later on. I want to wait until I have the time do it well though. If you've looked at the Torah class site at all though, you will already know most of what I want to say. If you haven't checked that out yet, go back a few posts and click on that link.

This past week we had the amazing honor of celebrating our first Biblical Feast, Yom Teruah, often referred to as Rosh Hashanah. To learn about the name difference you can check this out: http://www.karaite-korner.org/yom_teruah.shtml This same site will explain what Yom Teruah is all about too. (Karaite Korner is NOT a Messianic site, but is a Jewish site) Did you know that when the New Testament records Jesus being in Jerusalem, he was there in observance of one of the Biblical Feasts?

The new moon was not officially sighted until Wednesday, October 1 this year. Since the feast days are based on sighting the new moon, not the scientific prediction of the western calendar, Yom Teruah was miss-labeled on all of the calendars in our home. Since we are very new at this, we had our own Yom Teruah feast at home on Monday evening by mistake. Since we don't have a shofar, we used a tambourine, maracas, bells, and a triangle to mark the "day of shouting".

On Wednesday we met with our new church, Bet HaShem http://www.bet-hashem.org/index.html to celebrate the official feast based on the moon sighting. There was teaching, shofar blowing, Davidic dancing, feasting, and fellowship. We did have a good time getting to know people. We all enjoyed the evening, even K2 joined us and got a lot out of the experience. And guess what? There were at least four women who were wearing a head covering! I have NEVER known anyone else who covered before so this is a exciting thing for me.

Yom Teruah, and all Biblical Feasts, are also Shabbats or Sabbath's. They are supposed to be a day of rest, or ceasing. We have not been able to make this happen yet. How does one live and work in North America and take each Feast Day off from work as well as each regular Shabbat? I suppose if one were self employed, but Ken is not. He rarely has to work on Saturday but he certainly DOES work past sunset on Friday (the beginning of Shabbat) most of the time. What's a person to do? It seems that pushing this too far becomes legalism though. That's not what the Shabbat is about. For now we're going to do what we can and not worry about the rest. What do other Shabbat keepers do? And for that matter, what does KEEPING Shabbat mean to you? What do you think "ceasing" refers to?

Yes, we are new at this. If I've gotten any of my facts wrong I apologize and please let me know. We are hungry for knowledge. :)

A Crisis?

Michele at Frugal Granola posted some very good insights today. Take a look at it. Whether you agree or not, at least it's thought provoking. http://frugalgranola.blogspot.com/2008/09/living-simple-life-part-25.html

Learning

I grew up in church. I was taught the Bible and theology fairly thoroughly from the time I was in about third grade. The church I attended wasn't just a place that gave "milk" but they added quite a lot of "meat" too. When I hit college age, I attended a conservative Christian college and was required to take many classes on the Bible and theology. Of course one of my many declared majors during that time was Urban Missions so that explains some of those religion classes I took. In other words, I thought I knew a lot about why I believed what I believe. I don't think I was arrogant on that fact but I did think I was fairly well educated in that regard. Boy was I wrong!

A few months ago I came across a link for an on-line class on the Torah (first five Old Testament books). After reading what I could find on the teacher, Ken and I decided to do this class each evening as our Bible study. I was aware that the Bible authors were all Hebrew and wrote from a Hebrew perspective. I knew that perspective was different from the way I would see things being from a Western perspective. I just didn't know how different. I've mentioned this series of classes before but I (and Ken) are getting so much out of them. I highly recommend them. I am amazed at how much the Old Testament relates to and mirrors the New Testament. And we're only on Genesis 15! They have classes available on-line, you can even download the visuals, from Genesis through Judges chapter 5 so far. We went through the Biblical Feasts teachings too. Wow! http://torahclass.com/studies.html

Since this class has been making a big impression on us, we felt we needed to do a little more looking around in regards to a church home. In many ways we're still missing CTK since it was home for so long. SBCC is a better fit for us now, but ... Well, we're not sure yet. So, last Sabbath (yes, Saturday - which IS the Sabbath), we attended a Messianic service for the first time. I have to tell you that before I had to go take care of the babies in the back, I was teary a few times. I felt so over-joyed to be sitting in a congregation with Jewish Believers. The Shofar blowing, the singing, the testimonies and sharing were remarkable. We were so unfamiliar with all of it but the congregants were all so very kind, patient and welcoming. Even with two cranky one year olds we were welcomed with open arms. K3 REALLY liked the service. She's good at sitting through any kind of service but I've felt she didn't get much out of it. She did last Saturday though. Will this be our new church home? I don't know yet. I do know that all of us want to go back this week though. We're waiting for an answer.