The "Anniversary Stealer's" birthday! Can't believe he's NINE! (Tori, per his request, helped him make his own birthday cake this year.)

Encountering Jesus ~ Whisperers ~

Well... 

It has been over two months, seriously, since I've done a gratitude/Encountering Jesus post... not because I've not had much for which to be grateful or because I've gotten bored with this study... but rather because I've been overwhelmed with life with teenagers and their crazy schedules, other circumstances... AND? We've been on the road, almost nonstop.

So, it is good to feel like I can hop back in the saddle... and get back to working my way through Jesus encounters in the book of John.

Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me."

At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?”

The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him. (John 7:24b-32)

Some of these passages of Jesus' encounters with the Pharisees and His conversations with larger groups of people, I find confusing, hard to understand and make application and in general, just wonder what I'm missing. That's how I'd been feeling about these verses, until I read them again, early this afternoon and I noticed the word "whispering..."

Whispering doesn't always have a negative connotation - but it does in these words. Jesus is, if you will, making a scene - and people are uncomfortable:

1. First, there's the exhortation to stop judging based on what things look like based off of first glance. Of course, that is something everyone does. It requires a persistent, devoted practice of choosing grace and mercy instead of always assuming I've understood. It requires entering into someone else's life to find out the deeper story. It demands seeking truth even when it might not be convenient.
2. Then, people start asking questions - recognizing the Jesus is the one stirring up the temple officials, so much so that there'd been quite public conversation about killing Him... I'd always assumed that up until the very end, that had actually been a hidden agenda of the temple leadership. Apparently not. It is almost as if they are saying, "They said they were gonna take care of this guy. Why haven't they done it. He's nothing but a nuisance and a danger!"
3. Then they begin to doubt. At first, it appears the general public assumed that the authorities lack of action must indicate that they believe Jesus might be the Messiah... Of course, that is an inconvenient thought, which they quickly rationalize according to man's logic. For, if He really is Messiah, He really has the right to confront as He is and the people recognized that admission was the same thing as agreeing with Christ... agreeing that they need to change.
4. Again, Jesus confronts... He insists that they do know from where He comes. They sense the truth and painful wisdom in His Words, see the miraculous in what He does... and are silenced by the strength of His confrontation.

As I've continued to reread these verses, it seems like all of this whispering is going on on "at the back of the class" or on the outskirts of the teaching circle. Jesus is up front, or in the middle, and there are people who are attentive, to whom He is speaking and teaching. Religious leaders are watching and listening from the outside. Perhaps it is these and other "knowledgeable" good people on the fringes who are the ones starting this whispering. 

Then, all of the sudden, Jesus addresses the murmuring out-liers. 

I'm a teacher by trade. One strategy when you've got murmuring going on is to simply ignore. That, however, does not always work. Maybe Jesus tried ignoring first... but then He cried out. And His cry revealed Who had sent Him:  "...He Who sent me is true. You do not know him..."

Or... "God sent me and you do not know Him!" 

People didn't like hearing that then. They still don't like hearing that today, regardless of the fact that most of us "imagine" God, at least to some extent, in our own image because it is what we know and what we understand. When we think we are right, then we are sure God agrees with us, right? That admonition from the beginning - to make judgments based on truth rather than on appearances - holds true as we look at God and what He is doing and as we try to understand Him.

Where do we get that truth? It must come from Him, His Word, His World, His speaking through circumstances and other people, His Holy Spirit guiding from within.

Yet it is still so natural to rely on my intuition... and to whisper quiet complaints when God won't fit in my box or do what makes sense to me.

After Jesus' declaration, people were angry. They tried to "seize" Him. "They" tried to apprehend with intent to imprison. The they here must be the general crowd because later the chief priests and the Pharisees did, officially, send guards to arrest Him. Fascinating, that the "officially" sanctioned action, the one the crowd had been expecting earlier, didn't come until after. After the Pharisees heard other, different whispers. Whispers, perhaps, no longer of discontent but of incredulous belief. Whispers asking:

1. If the coming Messiah would be able to perform miracles like this man, Jesus?
2. If Jesus was the coming Messiah?

That day, some whisperers believed...

this week's gratitude list

(#'s 4332 - 4359)

refund check finally arrived in the mail

little squirt's birthday

another new teen

anniversary celebration together in Quebec

that the truck didn't break down until we got to Québec

an extra day in one of our favorite places

fondue by candlelight with some really special people

singing Christmas carols en français

snow, snow and more snow - an amazingly beautiful, frozen winter wonderland and white Christmas

making it home in time for Jonathan's birthday...

...and for the girls' Christmas concert

that shoveling the driveway is such great exercise

Christmas with family

sopapillas as a birthday breakfast

serendipity allowing us to visit with friends in Charleston

New Year's with the Johnsons... and now my kids want to move to South Carolina

Jekyll Island

meeting the board of our organization

catching up with friends who've got kids the age of our littles

gator walks and watches

adjoining hotel rooms

downloaded videos to watch with my boy in the car

first half championship football with friends, even if the end was nothing like the beginning and we didn't find out until the next morning

safety for my dad through surgery

seeing cousins (and their pets), even if the visit was too short

a policeman hero as an uncle

a new pet, named Fivel

knowing where we'll be living next year!

  

Ten most recent posts in this series: 

• Bread of Heaven... Bread of Life
• "gong-good'-zo" - Go ahead and say that, just like it looks like it sounds.
• "Stop grumbling among yourselves!"
• Not so much about filling tummies... but lives...
• To Whom Shall We Go?
• Incognito
• Learned? Schmearned!
• Instead judge correctly (part 1)
• Instead judge correctly (part 2)
• Instead judge correctly (part 3)

Click here for all of the titles and their corresponding links in the Encountering Jesus series.

~ celebrating 19 years ~

Nearly a week away, just the two of us...

Taking off in a little white pickup truck and heading north...

Where we visited one of our most favorite cities... 

and undoubtedly one of the most drastically different environments from Niger...

We walked slipped and slid...

We enjoyed the Christmas lights...

We shopped ducked into stores to warm up...

We caught up with friends we've not seen in several years...

We drank hot chocolate at an indoor café...

We ate traditional fare at a super yummy restaurant...

We had lots of time to talk and visit...

Delightful!

Any

guesses?

"The cold never bothered me anyway!"

People always ask us how her adaptation to life in America is going... since prior to touching foot in this strange place last summer, she had no memories of her passport country.

She seems to be adjusting better than her older siblings... at least to weather related aspects... Don't you think?

Never would've suspected this.

Just a few months ago, all she really knew was life on the backside of the Sahara.

(Thanks to Anna, for kidnapping my phone to take these photos.)

Five Minute Friday ~ See

Seeing.

It's one of the five senses.

You'd think that it would be relatively objective.

After all, we can all look at the picture above, and see that there is a field of  wild grass with scattered wildflowers and a stream running along in the background.

Right?

Fairly straightforward and simple... until...

...until you start talking about perspective.

Perspective is a bit like different filters or settings or whatever (I'm really not camera-smart). That collage has the original photo in the top left. All of the other photos are essentially (I didn't use a tripod, so the focus is a little bit different each time) the same picture, each one taken as I wheeled through the different automatic scene settings on my camera.

Perspective wasn't a commonly used word... until relatively recently. It's usage has augmented greatly since the 1960's. 

I think that means that this world recognizes that there are different ways to see the same thing... This "infographic" about middle eastern perspectives on how women should dress dramatically and surprisingly demonstrates this fact. Perspective matters - not just because it filters, even sometimes changes, details seen - but because some perspectives are more accurate than others. Only one perspective, God's, is guaranteed true. I need to remember that as I parent, as I interact with others, as I minister and serve... as I walk through this life...

Frankly, the perspective I want to keep most of all is one of never-forgetting Who always sees rightly, even when I can't see or when I focus on all the wrong stuff... the one delightfully expressed in these song lyrics: 

When trouble seems to rain on my dreams

It's not a big, not a big deal

Let it wash all the bugs off my windshield

Cause You're showing me in You I'm free

And You're still the refuge

That I've just got to get to

"Consecrated Negligence"

Just last week, I posted this over at Missionary Mom's Companion... and am still thinking much about it. I'd love to hear from you, too... how you feel about this idea... so I'm going to post it here, with a few changes and additional parenthetical additions, as well. Please comment ~ 

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2014.

Another new year.

And probably like most people - at least in western societies and cultures - I've been taking stock of the past twelve months, evaluating successes, analyzing failures and trying to figure out what I need to change to better be obedient to God, love and honor Him while also genuinely loving the people around me. 

Thanks to a book I've been reading, one recommended by a trusted friend and mentor, the words "consecrated negligence" probably best describe one of my key goals for this next year. I'm sharing them with you because they are words from which many of us missionary [or actually, really... anyone who tends to be more of a driven personality] types would benefit if we would only take them to heart. 

This year is a furlough/home assignment year. Our Nigerien colleagues always called it a vacation or holiday. Most missionaries know that it is anything but. 

Six months in, I'm feeling the exhaustion/exultation all mixed up... Piled on top of that, there's the exhaustion of an intense ministry term in West Africa and then just the transition of coming back to our home country and readjusting to life here. It has been a huge learning curve... and what I'm learning is that I can't do it all the way I've managed in the past. I've not yet determined if it is because I'm getting older or if it is because as my kids get older, their needs actually become more demanding (not to mention the stakes seem a lot higher) and I'm being stretched in so many more and different ways... 

Things that I want... that I believe should... be happening just aren't. Like the ladies' Bible study I was looking forward to attending. Or learning to make a sourdough starter and back sourdough bread... Not to mention just keeping up with the laundry (with consistent electricity and water) and a dryer! And those are just a couple of areas where I'm convinced I'm falling short. More than once I've felt like these trees might have felt (if I believed that trees had feelings) after the huge ice storm that rolled through our part of the world a few weeks back: 

• bent over, 
• weighed down, 
• knowing that something soon - any more piled on or hanging off - just might cause me to crack and crash to the ground... 
• or reshape me so much that there is little hope of bouncing back, ever.

Thus, as I'm reading about expat workers and emotional fatigue and realizing I'm more or less in that zone - the phrase "consecrated negligence" has bored its way into the fog. I think it will be something that God will be teaching me more about this year.

What is "consecrated negligence?"

It isn't a term I coined and I don't even know who to credit - other than the vague credit given in the book I've been reading: 

One Christian worker in Denver practices what he calls consecrated negligence. He just chooses not to do certain things even though they need to be done. He says, "If those tasks aren't critical and i feel like I've done all I can handle, I just consecrate the to God and neglect them."

I guess some would call that prioritizing. Others might call it delegating.

But for driven, perfectionist types - or maybe I should just say for me, there is a key difference. Prioritizing doesn't set down, remove or ever simply look the other way. It simply says that I'll do that other job once I get these more imperative things done first. Delegating takes a job that I'm convinced is important and gives or assigns it to someone else - yet I'm still at least somewhat responsible for seeing that it gets accomplished.

Neglect, on the other hand, is abandoning and failing to look after; it implies choosing not to cherish and disregarding, often because other things have already captured your time and attention. One synonym is "shirk." 

Put that way, it sounds unbiblical.

But is it any less unbiblical than forgetting that it all doesn't depend on me? That I'm not indispensable? That God actually doesn't need me? 

And so this year, one of my hopes is that I'll take some steps in practicing consecrated negligence. 

Can I have a one phrase instead of a one word? (Note: One Word is a super neat idea... check it out if you'd like to try that instead of a list of resolutions for 2014.)

I want to be able to realize that some things I'm doing because they are my ideas, not necessarily bad, but also not necessarily God's. For those things that I just can't do and the times when I can't keep up - I want to learn to purposefully step away and recognize that what God wants done, He ultimately handles it or impresses someone to serve in that way. Sometimes the stepping away might be from something mundane - like making sure the house is picked up each night before bed. Sometimes it might include higher stakes, like an upcoming and potentially life changing ministry opportunity. But in either circumstance, as well as an infinity of other ones landing anywhere along said continuum, I know there are times God wants me to abandon my ideas of what needs to be done and rest in the knowledge that God is sovereign.

And honestly? I'm still figuring out how to figure this all out...

What about you?

What do you think of this idea of consecrated negligence? 

Do you already practice the same thing by another name? 

Is this something you think you need to start learning, practicing and applying in your life?

~ see original post here.

~ Best of 2013 ~ The top 15 posts from Our Wrighting Pad these last 12 months... as we wish you a GRACE-FILLED 2014!

A recap of 2013's most popular posts (measured by both number of comments, number of views as well as Facebook response...

Comment... let us know which post/series was YOUR favorite!

******************************************

Tied for #15:

HOME ~
At the beginning of this school year, my two oldest were given a writing assignment - to describe a space or a place that made them feel "at home." As a parent of TCKs - kids who often, according to the literature, have a hard time defining a place to call home - I was very interested to see what they'd write. I loved this glimpse into their hearts and minds and beings. Their daddy did, too... reading these essays just about brought him to tears, literally.

So, to use a much cliché-ed quote... without further ado here are Brendan's and Rebekah's essays (and a few recent, favorite, pictures)... 

FIRST GLIMPSES OF BREN @ MESSIAH ~

Ever wonder why when they do those introductory - meet and find out about new people - you end up doing things that make some people feel like complete idiots and totally foolish while others just love it and shine once the silliness starts?

I do. Those things, while I can appreciate their purpose and see their validity and effectiveness... drive me crazy.


Don't know if Brendan was thinking the same thing as he played "Dead Bug Tag..."

#14

MODELING THOSE NEW DRESSES...  ~
(Photos of Nadia, Anna and Tori)

#13

ARE YOU WATCHING OUT FOR THOSE DRESS CODE POLICE?  ~ 

Dress codes are one of those things I get and don't get... all at the same time. 

Parents, not schools or other organizations, are the ones responsible for determining a dress code for their own children. As a parent, I also believe that in general, we can't leave teenagers to independently establish a dress standard that the adults in their lives will deem acceptable. It is not, however, the role of the school to come up with a standard of dress that they think every person needs to follow. I do understand that there needs to be some sort of standard or guidelines...

#12

SHE  ~ 

She misses her bro...

Butterscotch and Beethoven...

Climbing her favorite tree...

Even when it meant our not-so-little-anymore-buck-goat-would keep her treed there...

#11

OUR BIGGEST OF THE LITTLES MIGHT BE SMALL IN STATURE... 

We took our littles to the county fair today/tonight. It wasn't their first visit, but only Victoria vaguely remembers going before - and what she mostly remembers is the animals... and watching the big cat show... from the last time! It's been four years, after all!

After a couple of hours there this morning/afternoon and a yummy-but-way-too-expensive-and-bad-for-your-health lunch with the whole family, we had to bring our biggers home for their sports practices and we decided that we'd return later in the evening, after the midway (i.e. the rides) opened, with just the littles. I figured they'd want to go through the fun houses, play a few games, ride the carousel and the ferris wheel and maybe the kiddie roller coaster. After all, they'd never been to an "amusement park" before in their entire lives.

#10

PHOTOS FROM JOE AND ANDI'S WEDDING  ~ 

#09

HOMELAND SECURITY  ~ 

Is it weird to say that I felt safer with my family...

• living in W Africa with all the possibilities for disease, injury or illness
• knowing (as we watched military planes fly up river and then return) that there was a full-fledged war going on just a couple hundred miles up river
• recognizing that terrorist activity was all around us... and probably infiltrating our "neighborhood" as well
• driving in developing country traffic every single day...

...than I do living in the developed west?

**************************

(A post written for another blog site where I regularly contribute)

#08

RHYTHM  ~ 

There's a definite rhythm to missionary life - goodbye... hello... goodbye... hello...

But then again, in this day and age, this world that we live in, isn't that pretty much the rhythm of all life - from first hellos to final goodbyes?

That doesn't make it any easier, for anyone, in any place, at any time, in any position or "calling."

I strive to do well those hellos...

#07

TODAY HE AND I ARE LEAVING FOR UNI ~ 

Some mamas dread this day.

I'm not sure what I'm feeling because it won't be the day

for which I'd been preparing myself.

I had expected our goodbye to take place in a small W. African capital city before he hopped on a plane with his daddy for a vacation in Ireland and then a return to Michigan...

#06

BELONG  ~ 

To be... long

Existing for a significant time 

or 

covering a substantial distance

To long... to be

          Wishing, craving, yearning,

aspiring, desiring to be 

present, current, real

To belong

fitting, feeling right, measuring appropriately...

classifying or assigning rightly to a specific place or time...

including, blending, complementing, conforming...

harmonizing...

#05

BRAVE  ~ 

...So many qualify brave as about self... a choosing to set aside my own fear to do something remarkable and courageous, often wonderful and serving; it's a deliberate disregard of all the best reasons why not to stand on the single reason to say... or shout... or even faintly whisper... "Yes..."

Tempting, to let brave become all about me instead of all about others. After all, who doesn't desire to be seen "beautiful and brave?" Does that desire sully the splendor? Cower the courage?

Perhaps. For all in this imperfect world is dulled by the tarnish of sin....

#04

SQUIRREL SOUP  ~ 

Sometimes dinner at our house is pretty normal. Other times it is anything but.

Sometimes it is hard to actually eat the food due to the conversation. Other times, conversation is child-led strategy to somehow escape eating a less than favorite meal.

For the next 31 days, I'm planning to post about dinner time at our house as part of an annual writing challenge hosted by the nester.

Hopefully, you'll get a humorous... very real... glimpse into life, {um - dinner}, chez les Wrightlings... all 8 {um I guess it is more accurate to say 7 of them since the biggest one will be mostly off at school} - of 'em!

Last night, we ate squirrel soup...

#03

AFRAID  ~ 

The harmattan haze is here...

It is uncomfortably gusty this year.

Usually, this is my favorite time of the year in Niger, even with the nonstop dusting and removal-of-desert-from-dwelling-place... but this year?

Our relatively calm, overgrown and sprawling village-turned-capital-city has changed dramatically due to political and military events in the land next door. Police checks, bombers and attack helicopters roaring by overhead, car searches where they make sure it really is veggies and not explosives, military escort required to leave the city limits and armed soldiers at the gates of the kids' schools... every single day. The convoy of tanks headed into the thick of things literally passed by within a stone's throw...

Is my family is actual danger? 

#02

APPROXIMATELY HOW MANY TIMES A MONTH DO YOU GO OUT TO EAT? ~ 

(Another post on another site I write for each month...)

I can’t remember the first time we received one of those questionnaires in the mail…

Since that time, many more have arrived – although now it is not  uncommon for a link to show up in our inbox, requesting us to respond to a list of questions at an online site which then tabulates our input  and communicates our replies to whatever agency posted the questions. You would think I would have grown accustomed to this. I haven’t. Instead, I find it harder and harder to keep a good attitude, simply answer the questions and send them back. At the same time, I do understand the motivation behind and the significance of those questionnaires; in theory, I support their validity and see their worth… which makes it hard to argue that they shouldn’t be sent.

So I won’t.

On the other hand those questionnaires never fail to, at very best, discourage me. At worst, I get downright angry – as in sinfully angry...

#01

A series on the kids in preparation for our return to the States last summer... 

Since our home assignment is imminent, friends and family are asking us how to best pray for our children as we prepare to bring them back to our home and plop them in the middle of Mid-Michigan; we do what we can to help them adjust, but basically, we try to trust God as He leads and hope for the best.

Doesn't sound too proactive to write it out that way, does it?

We're open for better ideas, if you have any?

Anyways, I thought I'd dedicate a post to each one of our school children - and maybe it would give you some ideas as to how to pray for these wonderful munchkins as well as the-not-so-much-anymore-munchkins that we commonly refer to as Wrightlings (It really is the perfect term for them, coined by our buddy Ryan! Thanks, Ryan!)

• MARY  ~ 
• ELSIE MAE  ~
• JONATHAN ~
• VICTORIA ~ 
• ANNA  ~
• NADIA  ~
• REBEKAH JOY  ~
• BRENDAN  ~