The Thanksgiving Tree - November's Family Devotion

For Parents: 

The mall is decorated for Christmas before Halloween has even arrived.   With the crush of Christmas coming, it is easy to skip right over Thanksgiving and head into celebrating Christmas.  November’s family devotion is designed to help your family set aside time to be grateful – to give thanks – for the immeasurable ways God has blessed you.  Our family has had a Thanksgiving tree for the past 6 years.  The day after Thanksgiving I collect our “gratitude leaves” and place them in a zip lock bag with the year written on it.  Each year when we get out our Thanksgiving tree and other decorations, we take time to look through the bags from past years.  It is an amazing testimony to God’s enduring faithfulness to our family.  I pray that this devotion will be the start of a new tradition for your family, a tradition of entering the holiday season with thanks. 

Materials You Will Need: 

·         Bible,

·         Garden pot

·         Rocks to fill the pot – or florist Styrofoam to support your tree branch

·         Tree Branch

·         Colored paper leaves with ribbon or string attached to hang on your tree. (if time and ages allow, making these leaves can be part of your family time.  Precut paper leaves can also be purchased from your local craft or teacher supply store.  Look in the bulletin board or scrapbooking section)

·         Tree branch – approximately 24-30 inches tall with multiple smaller branches coming from it – if you cannot find a suitable branch in your yard, you can purchase one at your local craft store)

·         Pens or markers

·         Optional: decorative ribbon to tie around your pot. 

 The Thanksgiving Tree: 

November's Family Devotion

Introduction:   

We are fortunate in the United States to have a national holiday set aside to thank God for His many blessings.  Sometimes it may feel like Thanksgiving is a day about football games, lots of food, watching parades or even getting ready to shop for Christmas, but that is not what Thanksgiving is all about. 

Thanksgiving is a day set aside to thank God for the many ways He has blessed us.  God wants us to take time to thank Him.  Throughout the bible we can find stories of people who please God by being grateful to Him, and people who angered God by being ungrateful.  We want to be a family who pleases God.  We want to be a family who takes the time to thank God for the many gifts He has given our family.   

 Reading:  Luke 17: 11-19 Ten Men Healed of Leprosy

Discussion:

·         What did Jesus do for the ten men?

Leprosy is a severe skin disease.  It is painful and at the time of Jesus, there was no known cure.  People with leprosy had many wounds on their skin, and often lost parts of their face, hands and feet.  While the physical pain of leprosy was great, perhaps the greater pain was that people with leprosy had to live away from their families, outside of towns and cities.  When Jesus healed them, He not only physically healed them, but he allowed them to return to their families.  What a gift!

·         Why do you think the one man came to thank Jesus?

·         Why do you think the nine men did not come back?  

·         It is easy to think that we would be like the one man who came back, but it is easy to be like the other nine and forget to thank God for the good things He does for us.  Discuss as a family what you have to thank God for just from today.

·         Discuss as a family how often you take time to thank God for His many blessings.  How can your family help one another remember to “go back” and thank God?

Family Activity:  We are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We want to take time to remember the many ways God has blessed our family this past year.  We are going to make a Thanksgiving Tree which will display and celebrate our gratitude.  Today we will put together our tree and add the first leaves.  Between now and Thanksgiving we will have blank leaves to add to the tree as we think of additional things.  On Thanksgiving we will read all of our leaves together. 

1.       Secure your tree branch in your pot with rocks or florist foam.

2.       Tie decorative ribbon around your pot if desired.

3.       If you are planning on cutting out paper leaves, trace leaf patterns onto orange, red,  and yellow construction paper and cut out.  Punch a small hole at the top of each leaf and tie ribbon or raffia through the hole.  You will need a total of 15-40 leaves (plan on 5 per person)

4.       To start off your tree, have each family member write out one or two leaves of things they are grateful for. 

5.       Place remaining leaves in a small dish or basket near the tree so family members can add leaves as desired between now and Thanksgiving. 

On Thanksgiving take time to read all the leaves on your tree.  If you have guests coming for Thanksgiving dinner, leave one or two blank leaves at their dinner place so they can participate in your celebration of giving thanks. 

 

Closing Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father:

We desire to be a grateful family.  Lord like the one man who came back to you and praised you, we lift our hearts in praise and thanksgiving to you Lord.  You are a good and loving God.  You have showered our family in blessings.  We take time now to each offer our thanks to you...(allow each family member to share as desired and able).  We lift up all of these things to you in great thanksgiving,  in your Son’s precious name.  Amen. 

Momma you are going to SUCK

I had a wonderful baby shower before each of my girls were born.  I recieved so much love and blessings.  I received a stack of cards assuring me I was going to be a wonderful mother.  My child would love me.  I would be amazing.  This little baby was going to be blessed because it got to have me as a mother.  You know the standard Hallmark drivel. 

All those messages were appreciated, and in my about-to-be-momma state, I really needed the support they offered, but now ten years into mothering I think that it would've been merciful if there had been one other card given to me.  It could have been small, and hidden among the positive ones, it would've said on the outside:

Momma, you are going to suck.

One glorious day you will suck as a mom in ways

that will amaze even you.

You will go up in flames of suckiness...

 

You see, this is the truth as much as the glowing cards saying we'll be wonderful.  There will be many, many nurturing days, and great decisions, and building up of fragile idenities, but across the years  there's going to be a day when a mom would appreciate the forewarning that she's going to SUCK. At least then, when that day comes, it would't be such a 2 by 4 to the heart.

 

Last week my friend Manya and I both sucked.  Big time.  (Manya has graciously agreed to fall on the ax with me here for your benefit.) On Sunday I received a text message from Manya saying they were going to look at a puppy.  This may seem like a nice text under different circumstances, but I know my dear Manya, and like me, she is not a pet person.  When I saw the message, I immediatly called her, but got voicemail.  "Walk away from the puppy."  I warned.  "Do not get a dog.  You do not want a dog. Walk away from the puppy!" 

 

She didn't get the message.  There's a cosmic force around puppies anyway.  No one walks away from the puppy.  We all see our kids playing with the cute puppy, we imagine our mommy-awesomeness and say "yes".  They got the dog. 

 

Cute little Sawyer was not with them long before reality hit.  This was not the right season for them to have a dog.  Emotional mayhem ensued and Manya was facing the moment no one wants to face - big blazing sucky momness!  The dog had to go.  They broke it to the boys before school.  Naturally there were tears.  Lots of tears. 

 

I followed right on the heels of my dear friend.  Last Friday in the dark pre-dawn hours I found myself going up in flames.  Sarah's class had a big field trip to Charlotte for the day. They were to take the train, be there all day, and return in the evening.  I had prior plans for Friday so had decided not to go.  At the parent meeting, one dad told me, "Every parent goes."  The moms at the meeting tried to make me feel good saying many moms would not go.  My heart told me the dad was right, but I tried to block that out and listen to the moms.  The day of the trip arrived and Sarah freaked out.  The day before her friend had told her she was the only one without a mom going. 

 

We had hours of tears and panic and hysteria (maybe more on my part than Sarah's).  I felt like dirt.  We pulled up to the train station and Sarah pleaded with me, "please go!"  But by that point I couldn't.  For a mom that has prided herself on being there for her girls, it broke my heart. I left Sarah at the train station, with a tear stained face and no mom to stand with as the class gathered together to pray for a safe trip.

 

Last week both Manya and I needed that little card warning us about our upcoming suckiness.  In the midst of our guilt and tears we could have pulled it out and reminded ourselves that we'd been warned this day was going to come.  We could open up the card to read the inside.

 

 

On that day, when you really, really suck, don't worry. 

 I love this little kid I am sending you even more than you.

Although you'll have days you drop the ball, I won't.

When those sucky days come, I'll have your back.

Love, God

 

Both of us could have read our cards and laid down our burdens of guilt, knowing that God was going to pour into our kids exactly what they needed that day. 

 

God provided an out for Manya through her brother-in-law who wanted Sawyer.  Now the kids will still get to visit him and play with him.  On the day Sawyer moved, Manya made cupcakes for the boys after school.  She was ready for tears and drama when they walked in the door, instead she was greeted with hugs and love and gratitidue over the cupcakes.  Amazing.

 

Sarah jumped off the train Friday night like a successful voyager back from an amazing adventure.  She was glowing and happy and so proud of herself.  She had 140 pictures to show us from her day.  When I tucked her in.  She gave me a hug and said.  "It really was okay mom."

 

God used the messes Manya and I created, our blazes of suckiness, to teach both us and our kids about love and forgiveness and grace.  Lessons that couldn't come through our perfection.  So fellow mommas, if today you find yourself going up in a spectacular blaze of suckiness, lay down your guilt, and lift up your eyes... He's got your back. 

May you feel God pouring love and forgiveness and grace into your home as well.

 







R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Gimme some R-E-S-P-E-C-T  Priscilla.  "Priscilla?" you ask.  Yes, Priscilla, wife of Aquila, was the "princess" of the month at our Mother/Daughter bible study last week.  All year we will be looking at biblical women, aka God's princesses, and the royal characteristics they lived out. 

October was Priscilla and the characteristic of respect.  I don't know about little princesses living under your roof, but the ones living under mine can use a reminder every now and then about respect.  I was thrilled when our study leader Cindy announced this month's theme.  (I may have even wanted to shout Amen!  But of course that would not have been very respectful of my kids. )

Priscilla showed respect in the story accounted in Acts 18:1-28 when she and her husband Aquila were faced with having to correct their friend Apollos who was incorrectly teaching about Jesus.  Instead of calling Apollos out publicly, they waited, took him aside and then corrected him privately.  Priscilla respected Apollos. 

The girls really latched onto this story.  As first graders, they all are working hard to learn new skills of reading, writing and math at school.  They all make mistakes. As the girls talked it became apparent that most of them had seen or personally felt the hurt of classmates publicly calling out their errors. 

Cindy had planned some great activities around this lesson.  In small groups, the moms and daughters were given a giant letter.  They were asked to talk individually about what respect looked like.  It is a tough word to wrap your mind around.  It can mean a lot of things.  The groups wrote their ideas all over their letter.  We came back together and shared what we had written as the letters were tied together to spell out.... you got it....

R..E..S...P...E..C...T..

 

The girls had wonderful ideas about what respect looks like. 

• Love each other
• Help each other
• Wait my turn
• Use good manners
• Don't laugh at mistakes
• Helping
• being kind
• loving
• helping someone who's sick
• use nice words 
• not hitting
• gentle
• listen to each other

Our verse of the month is:

 

Respect everyone, and love your Christian brothers and sisters. 
1 Peter 2:17

 

Whether we are 7 or 37 or 67, in a culture of judgement and belittling (especially in our current election culture), it is good for us to think about Priscilla and reflect God's love by showing  each other a little R..E..S..P..E..C..T... 

 



 

 



Two Gifts for Our Ten Year Old

Ten years old.  I can barely even type that.  Last week Sarah, our miracle girl, turned ten. A whole decade.  For months Pete and I have been talking about what we would give her.  On one hand we asked,"what thing do you give a kid this amazing?"  On the other hand we asked, "what thing does this kid not already have?" 

For a kid who might be hoping for a pile of gifts on her birthday, it doesn't bode well when your mother spends months reading books about poverty and giving away possessions.  But Sarah's not the kid who was expecting a pile of gifts.  She asked for nothing.  For months people have been asking her what she wanted for her birthday.  "I think I have everything," she replied.

Last month I had coffee with my friend Cindy and within a conversation about intentional parenting she made a comment about parents taking their kids to Disney World over and over.  (This drives her bananas.)  She challenged that the money would be better spent showing their kids something of this world. Something real.  Although we were not talking about presents we give our kids, I left the conversation challenged.  How would we mark Sarah's birthday, by just blindly driving to the mall and wrapping up a bunch of stuff?

After that conversation, I stuck upon my first idea.  A bible.  I know that sounds really lame, but Sarah only had a kid bible, with a cardboard cover which was half falling off.  She never took it anywhere.  So our first gift to Sarah was a lovely turquoise leather covered bible with her name on it.  It is the gift of roots.  As she enters scary tweenhood, we pray she will root herself in the Word, and find her security in it. 

That's all we had two days before her birthday.  I kept thinking about Cindy's challenge.  I wanted our gift to speak to our priorities and dreams for Sarah.  On Tuesday, I drove to Richmond for a meeting.  During my six hours of driving, I listened to Love Does by Bob Goff.  One chapter of the book was devoted to his kids' tenth birthdays.  I was all ears! Bob and his wife gave each of their children one gift on their tenth birthday.  Just one.... three days with their dad... to do anything they dreamed of doing.  Anything. 

I called Pete from the car and he quickly agreed.  We had Sarah's second gift.

To Sarah, on your 10th Birthday...

What do you dream of seeing...

What have you always wanted to try...

Where do you want to go...

We are giving you a three day adventure with Dad.

You pick the adventure - Let's GO!

It's the perfect gift for our girl.  The gift of spreading her ever growing wings and seeing something she dreams of seeing.  The gift of three days with her dad in these fleeting last days of little girlhood. The gift of knowing this whole big world is waiting for her and we can't wait for her to see it. 

Happy Birthday sweet Sarah.  We can't wait to see what adventure you pick.  We know it's just the first of many amazing adventures God has in store for you! 

30 days into Our Salvation and Song

Thirty mornings our family has gathered around the breakfast table and checked off a tiny box on our reading guide.  Thirty days of school have started with scripture and prayer and discussion.  I'll be honest friends, it's not all been easy or pretty.  It's flat out a miracle that every morning the four of us have gotten dressed, taken the dog out, gotten lunches ready and had breakfast on the table on time.  Whoo hoo!

This morning started out like many others - looking shaky.  It's "silly hat" day at school.  Who knew selecting a silly hat that is not too silly, nor too plain could cause such tears.  Oh the drama of being six.  There were a lot of tears, and a lot of hats, and around 6:55 I thought, "today will be first the day we don't end up reading."  But we have been faithful to our task and now it's our habit so each of us plugged along with what needed to be done to get to breakfast.  We got there late, but we got there.

Pete prayed for us, and started our reading.  Today was Psalms 26-28.  Many mornings, I will admit, I'm not sure Sarah is totally awake.  Mornings are especially rough on her. Today I was afraid she was going to face plant into her Cheerios.  Pete read the first two Psalms.  His audience was silent.  He faithfully plodded into the third. 

Psalm 27

Of David

 

The Lord is my light and my salvation-

whom shall I fear? 

 

All of a sudden, Sarah was awake.  "That's my class's Psalm. I know it."
"Go ahead," Pete said, and she did:

The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the stronghold of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me

to eat up my flesh,

my adversaries and foes,

it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,

my heart shall not fear;

though war arise against me,

yet I will be confident.

One thing have I asked of the LORD,

that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter

in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

he will lift me high upon a rock.

 







Our sleepy, tear-stained morning was redeemed in the beautiful words of that Psalm.  Pete started reading the rest for us, and three verses later he read.

My heart has heard you say, "Come and talk with me."

and my heart responds, "Lord I am coming."  Ps 27:8 

There it was. The key verse for Our Salvation and Song.  The heart of why I put together this crazy plan to read all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Act and Psalms in one school year. 

We are thirty day in.  Thirty little boxes checked off.  Some days sleepy, some days crying, some days harried, but we are calling out to God, "Lord, I am coming!" as we head to our breakfast table. He has poured blessings back on us in ways beyond measure.  Ways I look forward to sharing with you here soon.  But today I want to encourage you to join our family and many others, by printing our Our Salvation and Song and starting to read scripture together daily. It's not "too late."  It doesn't matter when you start, or how far you are into your school year, what matters is that you just start.  God is longing for you to come and talk to Him.  I hope your family's response will be "Lord we are coming." 

Three Friends Every Mom Needs

Two weeks ago in Sunday School our teacher said, "No one warns you that there will be days you don't like your kids.  You will love them, but you won't like them."  She was referring to tweeners and teenagers, and although I thought I could file that bit of wisdom for a few years, I ended up needing it 5 days later.

One of our daughters made a series of bad choices which resulted in hurting me deeply.  While I'm grateful she's too young to brake any laws,  I now know she's old enough to break her momma's heart. 

In the hours after this event God placed three friends in my path to walk me through that day.  They were the three friends every mom needs.

1.  The Cliff Walker: 

In the painful moments after the shocking revelation that your child has actually just __________ (fill in the blank), every mom needs a friend willing to talk them off the cliff of overreacting.  Someone to walk out on that cliff with you, and calm you down.  My friend Courtney served as my Cliff Walker last week.  She didn't let me go strangle my kid.  The important feature of a Cliff Walker is that they can balance empathy and reality.  Courtney felt horrible for me (which made me feel better), but she reminded me that my daughter had just made a bad choice and was not actually a bad person. 

2. The Distractor:

When our kids are horrible it's easy to get overly wrapped up in it.  Our anger can grow, never allowing a mom to get herself off the cliff and solve the issue at hand.  Distraction goes a long way on a bad momma day.  Last week Amy was my Distractor.  She called me just as I was contemplating putting myself up for adoption. Fifteen minutes of chatting with Amy (I never brought up the horribleness of the day) brought me miles from the cliff and lightened my heavy heart immeasuribly.  A friend who can make you laugh on a hard day is worth her weight in gold and is a true gift from God.

3.  The Big Picture Friend:

I had an excellent plan for dealing with my daughter.  I was simply going to cancel her birthday party, return her gifts and make her my personal Cinderella (pre-ball) for the next few years.  Thankfully I have an awesome husband who is also my Big Picture Friend.  He patiently listened to the crime of the day and my plan for a punishment, then he reminded me of the Big Picture. Our big picture is to train up our daughters to be the women God wants them to be through a family marked by His love.  My punishment plan did not exactly go with our big picture.  Pete helped me form a new plan for dealing with the issue that honored our big picture.  I love that man! 

Every mom needs these three friends to get through the days that hurt them without them in turn hurting thier kids.  There are a few characteristics to look for when seeking these types of friends.

1.  Seek friends who love your kids.  Courtney loves my daughter, and I love her for that.  I have no question in my mind that she has forgotten last week and will not hold it against the girl.  She will still invite her over to play and will continue to love on her.

2. Seek friends who do not gossip:  Kids make mistakes, but parent gossip can turn a mistake into a label.  If the friends you turn to share your kid's dirt with other neighborhood or school moms, your kid can quickly go from being a "kid who made a bad choice" to "the bully," or "a liar," etc. 

3. Seek friends who share your vision of Christian parenting:  Find friends who are going to lift you up to the higher calling of parenting, not bring you down to an ineffective place of being a "kid basher."  The Facebook "friends" who repost the Sh@t Up About Your Perfect Kids pictures and quotes, are not the person to turn to. Find the friends who share your beliefs in parenting.  These friends will also be the people who cry out to God on your behalf. 

I know I am not the only mom out there dealing with hard parenting days.  How have you seen God use your friends to walk with you on difficult momma days?