Vanity

The girls came in from class Monday night. High and bubbling with understanding. Please help, me my Father, to rejoice with those who rejoice. Please help me not to envy them the education they are getting. Thank you, after all, that You are providing for them the education that I had, but can not pass on to them. But you are giving them greater than I had. And for which I praise You. They are our arrows. They will go farther. Isn't this the way it is to be? Please, the thrill in my heart is alloyed with envy, jealousy, fear that they will leave me behind.

Susan claimed "Dr. G has reshaped my mind". That was putting it a little too strongly, I thought. I don't think the girls know how much their minds have been shaped to hold what he is now giving them. Nor do they know how large is what they know or don't know. They are just now learning. And oh, I am so thankful for it. I couldn't have given them what they are getting. After all, though my education was good (but not as good as theirs, nowhere near as good, what I learned were just seeds that needed to germinate. I always longed for more that connected dots. My intuitive gifts were keen to see the poetry of knowledge), I was a lazy student. So much more I could have learned, but didn't. For I didn't always see the point, which is exactly what we all do now, Kilby, Susan, Cal, and I. The point. I thank God for the education that He is providing the children. Through the Word, through the preachers and teachers of the Word, through the teachers who have been shaped by the Word, whatever their discipline.

I had a conversation with Dr. G this afternoon when I arrived. We talked about the Joseph and Judah book. He gave me four extra copies (to send Laurie, Dave, Jon, and Kevin/Dana). We talked about the story of the Bible, about his aged mother and the similarities to my father, about my daughters and his daughter, about some of the things I have just written. About how our children will go farther than we, how our children will live in a more chaotic world than we (that's another post I could write--which world are we talking about?) I believe that I revealed at the end of the conversation my current weakness when I admitted to a sense of competition that I don't want to have.

We heard a sermon on the Prodigal Son coming in to work. Not by a Sonship proponent this time, but by beloved Kevin Skogen. The main point of which was that our God is a Father Who kisses and runs to meet us when we are repentant. The son is humbled to the point that all he wants is to serve in his father's house. And that is where we should be. And that is where I am. So why this muddy spirit of competition that rises? Self-righteousness? Oh, my daughters, forgive my selfishness, my vanity, my example of not trusting God. May He be pleased to make me as Grandma Douglas, as Pastor Fisher, as Simeon and Anna. How come it is that so many of the Bible's characters did not finish well? What has happened to my sure knowledge and delight in God's sovereign purposes in our lives? I need to reread the life of Amy Carmichael. I need to stop worrying about how I will finish and just get back to service. Right now that means no more blogging, but reading a book for Cal.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Big House

In a multitude of people is a king's honor. But in the lack of people is the downfall of a prince.
Proverbs 14:28

Debate your case with your neighbor,
And do not disclose the secret to another.
Proverbs 25:9

So. I ask for wisdom. There are a lot of people here. Seven of whom need my instruction. Six of those should not necessarily or necessarily should not hear the instruction given to a seventh. Long ago we learned, Cal and I, how to save our private discussions for when we could be alone. Once upon a time, we could talk over the kids ' heads. Once we could speak in euphemisms. Once we could put the kids to bed early. Once we didn't live with his mother. And once we had better memories so that we could save discussion for later when we could get alone. But now I have young adult children who need counsel or correction or instruction, and the problem gets enormously geometrically complex.

This morning during family devotions I remembered that I had meant to ask David about his last Sabbath Feast with us (whom to invite, etc.). (Focus on devotions, Debby.) We had a wonderful session in Ryle's Holiness, then singing "Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah" (AJ did not need to sit by me for help with alto on that old hymn), then reading Joshua 16 and 17 which tied nicely into the reading from Ryle on sanctification: we must claim the land that God has promised us, we must ask for it, take it, believing that He meant it when He promised it, we must do the work of it. It was after prayer, while Susan was accompanying us through "All Glory Be to Thee, Most High" (and AJ did need to come and sit by me for help on this one. Only I think he could have helped me as much as I helped him. Some of it is hard work.) Perhaps it was singing O Father, for thy rule is just and wise, and changes never; thy hand almighty o'er us reigns, thou doest what thy will ordains; 'tis well for us thou rulest that my mind went to one child in particular. I desired to seek her out to tell her what suddenly occurred to me in the midst of singing: that the providence that looks so painful may actually be a large protecting blessing from the Lord; that her circumstances might be more complicated than she can think, but that in the way things are sorting out, perhaps we can see God's protection and perfect orchestration. But these are sensitive matters.

As devotions ended I signalled to David that I needed to ask him a question. And I drew this daughter to me as well as I stirred the eggs. But then the kitchen was full of folks looking for breakfast and a husband who comes first by creation order, even if he was overwhelming me with his aftershave. And a grandmother whose deafness makes her oblivious to the fact that she's interrupting other conversations. Now, what was that lesson we were just singing? Lord, help me to leave frustration aside and submit to your Providence. Thank you for email by which we can do an awful lot of training of our children. Help me to believe that there is blessing in a multitude of people. Help me to believe that You will be faithful to sanctify not only me completely, but my children also, preserving us blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help me to put more of my thoughts into prayer that should I never have an opportunity to talk with this person or that, I have committed them to You, I have turned to you in faith that You are working all things together for good to those who love you.

Eclipse

I left the dinner table, albeit a laid back affair of sandwiches and no mats; the silliness and noise were getting to me. Asked Cal in passing to assign clean up and I was leaving. I found an old biography of Queen Victoria, quite well-written I am finding, that my grandmother gave me on my fifteenth birthday out of my grandfather's library. I rediscovered it, not remembering ever to have had it, when I moved books last week. I shut the door, shutting out the laughter and foolishness of my kids (they're excited in having some out of town guests arrive for a week), and curled up on my bed to escape by reading until I fell asleep. And fall asleep I did. The biography was engaging, (I even got to page 101 before quitting last night) but I was so tired not even the noise and Cal's typing kept me awake. For once I would not manage the evening for the whole family. L'aissez faire.

Until Susan's piano exercises drilled me awake. I heard them, tried to ignore them, was pleased to realize I was not resenting them. But at last they won. I was fully awake. I lay there wondering what ever happened to blissful periods of hymn interpretation from her dreamier, less goal-oriented days? I prayed for her. Then I resumed my reading:

. . . When, after her first Council, she crossed the ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said, "And now, Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?" "You see, my dear, that it is so. " "Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour." For an hour she remained in solitude. Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order: her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent. The long years of waiting were over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation. She found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of confidence, of power. . . .For eighteen years, she said, this child had been the sole object of her existence, of her thoughts, her hopes, and now--no! she would not be comforted, she had lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy. Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the buffeting storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling and pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there nothing--a land of bleak desolation.
Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey, New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1921

Now I hope there are many dissimilarities between my raising of my seven children for the glory of God and the Duchess of Kent raising the Princess Alexandrina Victoria for the throne of England, chief of them being our chief end. Guided by scripture, my children are not the sole object of my existence, of my thoughts, my hopes. Yeah, they take a lot of time. They are my life, my life's work right now. Like Victoria's mother, I have chosen to shelter my children from the influences of the world, filling their lives with goodness as I know it, and watching over their activities closely. But the Object of my existence is That which also drives my thoughts, and both are centered around my only Hope in this life and the next. I shall not be desolate when my children take up their God-appointed sceptres to rule the kingdoms He shall give them. I shall have more time to pray for them, more time to read good biographies, more time for painting (if my eyes last. Typing this post is a chore for what my grandmother used to call "bleariness"), more time to serve God in other ways. Nor do I expect my children to cut me off so abruptly from their lives, as I hope that my counsel will always be based on biblical wisdom. But now I am reaching...

I had been thinking about my children getting past my domain, eclipsing me, so to speak, last night while listening to Susan practicing. I went to her room to talk to her about my thoughts. I was comforted to hear her godly motivations. She is still on the right track. God keep her there. Always, my children, Satan is going to be working his deception to derail you. And I will be keeping a keen lookout as long as you are providentially in my purview. But pray for me to believe in God's infinite Goodness. Perhaps then I will be more joyful and less worried.