Do We Understand Honor?

Honor  

silver spray-painted pumpkins... their names printed on each pumpkin

I feel we are losing our grip on honor.  It is something that makes my hair stand on end when I see the lack of honor in our society.  Giving honor to someone else seems to be a lost art.

I may not agree with a politician's political position, but I am commanded in scripture to honor the position the person holds.   A community-servant position also requires honor...police, fireman, soldiers...etc. The position is what requires the honor from us citizens, not the person's actions.  God is the one who puts the person into their position and therefore, He knows what He is accomplishing through them.

God commands honor be given to our parents.  He doesn't list the "if they do this and that" then you honor...He requires honor.  His command also comes with a promise.

Clear glass plate transformed...thanks to trade secret from Debbie, the master of tablescape

The granting of honor to others is an essential experience in the believer's life. 
Christians are to bestow honor on those for whom honor is due. The believer is to 
honor God, for He is the sovereign head of the universe and His character is unsurpassed. The believer is to honor those in positions of earthly authority, such as governing authorities (Rom 13:1-7),  masters (1 Tim 6:1), and parents (Exod 20:12). 
As a participant in the church, the believer is also called to honor Jesus Christ, the head of 
the church (John 5:23), fellow believers (Rom 12:10), and widows (1 Tim 5:3). resolved youth article


Recently in a home group, a woman voiced, "I am so tired of everyone blaming their parents for what is wrong in their life!"  I felt her heart and thought of how we are losing this sense of honor.  Even in Christiandom, someone will give their testimony....."I was raised in a Christian home....but!!!!! my parents were too legalistic...etc, etc."  I have to ask you how is that honoring?  Does God receive honor when we trash someone else while pointing to Him?

This past weekend I was given the chance to honor my parents.  Both have moved into their 70's.  My father is almost completely deaf, making it hard for him to enter into social conversations.  As I prepared a birthday luncheon for them, I thought of how I could honor my parents... the honor due to their position as my parents and believers in the Body of Christ.

Silver spray-painted large pumpkin and stenciled-in-bronze, garage-sale table cloth and napkins

I gathered questions from my kids to their grandfather.  I typed these questions on a sheet of paper so he could read and answer.  He was delighted to share stories and talk.  Through some tears he expressed what was important in his life - his wife, his God and his education. This didn't require listening on his part.  My children were learning to extend honor by putting their own agenda aside...their own conversations, their cell phones and their time.

My mother enjoys beautiful things, so a fully-decorated table was in order for her. She sat at the opposite  end of the table from my Dad (listening to him talk, through the most loving and caring eyes) holding a bowl of pictures from years past.  She would randomly pick up a picture and tell the story behind it.  She picked up her family picture...out of the seven in the photograph, only three are still living.  She passed on her stories of losing her Dad at a young age then her two brothers.  She giggled at Dad's comments about meeting her...you watched them both become 16 and 18 again.

Honor was extended.  Their position in our family was placed as priority.  I pray that my children received a much-needed lesson this weekend.  I know I did.  They get to try it out again this next weekend as we visit their other grandmother, age 96, and celebrate their Aunt and Uncle's 50th Wedding Anniversary.

In order for us to turn the tide of dishonor in this land we have be begin at home.  I have to express honor to those God has placed in positions of honor in my life, no matter their actions.  I hope as I remember this lesson, my own family will be stepping toward giving honor to those it is due.

(I am not saying there shouldn't be "safe" places to share true life experiences.  Hiding abuse to show someone "honor" isn't honor.  Thanks to Vee for pointing out the need for true exposure in order to point someone to complete healing in Christ."

Cultivate - Again

Cultivate - to prepare, to loosen or break up the soil, to foster growth; to promote or improve growth by labor and attention; to develop or improve by education or training; to seek an acquaintance or friendship. To cultivate the arts means to encourage the arts.

Wow! All of that under the word cultivate. This word was used in our pastor's sermon on Sunday morning as he was expanding on I Peter 3:1-7. You probably wouldn't think about the word cultivate when looking at these verses, but it was in reference to what should be done for a wife. He expressed that her gifts should be cultivated.

Somehow, in the rush of trying to survive the struggles my family has been going through, I just stopped growing. Not that I didn't grow in size... I did, and not that I didn't age... I did, but I didn't grow. I started to justify NOT spending time cultivating.

How many times do women set aside their own growth to make sure the family is making it along the journey? Many will say that is why they work in jobs outside the home, so they can continue to grow themselves.  At home, moms will justify their lack of cultivation due to their responsibilities as a mom, while believing this neglect is being spiritual.

My choice has been not to work outside my home, even though that work would have provided financial security and, at times, much-needed adult conversation. We chose for me to stay home, to home-educate and raise six children. In the early days of mothering, I seemed to know the importance of cultivating. This usually meant a trip to the park for the kids to play, while I ate up the contents of a book. Cultivating meant taking walks with one in a stroller and the others on bikes,which gave me added energy AND a trim body. I would also escape to my bedroom during lunch time to steal away and watch a home decorating show... this was before HGTV. Each of these things would re-energize me, cultivate me.

I enjoyed creating and, in my early mothering days, I had a cabinet built for my sewing machine in the same room where the kids could play, while I sewed. I had my own business, where I could remain at home and still create. This allowed me the opportunity of cultivating my love for interior decorating. My business never took away from my mothering of four young children. Yet, it enhanced my mothering skills because I was cultivating myself, while learning to raise my children.

I read books, books, and more books. I seemed to have four or five going at all times that cultivated my mothering, my cooking, my spiritual walk, my home education and my business. I took evening classes on different pursuits, while also attending conferences.

Each mother needs to cultivate the woman God made her to be. A woman has so many facets of her life and each one reveals rays of the beautiful light God intended for her to share.

Somewhere between raising and guiding the first four through teenage-hood, I stopped growing. We moved to a new city, which was good. But when my eldest started high school, the full schedule put a hold on all my cultivating. As any gardener knows, if you don't cultivate the garden, your crop yield will be less and the weeds will invade your plot of land. As I put my tools down in order to maintain our busy schedule and adjust to our ever-decreasing finances, I allowed the weeds to take over the garden.

So, when our pastor talked about a woman needing to cultivate the gifts God had given her and how that was a priority in his stay-at-home wife's life, I had a sinking feeling in my soul. I stated to someone recently that I felt "lost", not knowing what I was supposed to do. Yes, I still have three children at home and two still need me full time. No, I am not re-entering the work force outside of my house, even though I am at the age for an empty nest. What I am going to do is go before the Lord and ask how to pick up my tools. They may not be the same tools He had used to cultivate me before, because this time, I first need to break up the hard ground. I need to know WHAT He wants to cultivate in me, WHICH gifts are still on my shelf that need to be brought down and WHICH gifts He wants to reveal in me now.

It is so easy to have life nail us with curve balls and we let them sideline us. When this happens, we justify setting our gifts down, usually because we feel we need to or just don't have the energy or resources to continue them. As our pastor explained, this puts a new level of importance on a wife being cultivated and that it is just as important for his wife to be cultivated in her gifts as it is for him to pastor his large congregation. These are gifts that God has given to us, to be used for his glory, to reflect Him with the many facets that shine from our lives.

I will pick up my tools once again and look forward to this new season of cultivating the woman God made me to be, while continuing to be a wife and mother. I am believing that while I am digging up hard soil, my family will be enriched by the new crop.

This is a re-post for when I began blogging.  God is still working this truth in my life.  Blogging and re-doing my home is a fruit of the cultivating I have started.  I hope this re-post blesses you.

A Need for a New Topper

There are just times in life when you just need a new topper.  

In the life of a lamp, which brings such wonderful light into any matter,.there still comes a time for change.  

This is a second post in Diamond Designs on a Dime.

My lamps have survived many knocks and bruises.   I mean, try to life in a household with boys...basketballs and baseballs flying.  Even if the residences of the home didn't send the lamp's parts flying at times...well let's say their friends could do some damage.

So with mixed emotions I decided that the memories from all the knocks over the past 16 year showed too much on the shades of our lamps.  I just couldn't part with the bases at this time, having paid toooooooooooooo much for them years ago.  But one too many tumbles had called for attention and updating of my light shiners.

Easy fix.....new lamp shades from Tuesday Morning.

I removed the old shades and traded them out.  I took the finial at the top and painted them back instead of the gold color from past years.

Another new topper was a thrift store find and "dressing it up" for my kitchen.

Now all I need is to paint thrift store $4.00 base to bring in my retro-blue.

Now to add some more spice to the lamp shade.

A new lamp for my kitchen.

Look what some hot glue and pom pom fringe can do to a thrift store find....total cost $10.00.