Prayer: Asking God to Be What He Is

With the way we see prayer, it seems kinda goofy for us to pray that God be what He already is.  We usually think of prayer as giving God information, asking for help, requesting stuff.  But look at what David prays in Psalm 31:

Be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me.  For You are my rock and my fortress.

Do you suppose maybe there really is something to that thing about prayer being when we speak back to God the truths that He has already given us?

Driving and Brain Speed

Maggie doesn't drive.   When she was approaching the age when kids are allowed to take drivers' ed, I couldn't put my finger on the reason why we weren't going to allow her to get behind the wheel.  After the psychological evaluation she had recently, now I know why. 

If your brain processes things slowly, it's hard to take in all the things you see when driving, consider not only what's happening but also what is likely to happen in the next several seconds, then make decisions about what to do with your couple-of-tons of metal, and then do it.  And that would be even harder when there's extra traffic or when you're driving in an unfamiliar area, trying to watch for stop signs while navigating unknown roads to your destination.

After our IEP meeting, I've been wondering if there's something that can be done to help Maggie increase her processing speed.  The IEP which the school offered doesn't really have anything designed to achieve higher processing speed.  The remedial reading, writing, and math they're offering look to me as if they're trying to help her catch up to closer to "where she should be" according to the school's timetable.  When I look online for information about increasing neurological processing speed, I am skeptical.  Someone provides a service that purports to help increase a student's processing speed.  Will it work?  Or are they hawking a service that will line their pockets?  How can we know? 

Too often, I've seen "tests" which purport to measure a certain aspect of a person's ability.  The test is supposed to represent/reveal how a person performs in one area of thinking.  Then the person is trained and drilled and drilled and trained.  The person improves his score on the test.  But (!!!) does that mean the person has actually improved in thinking ability or reasoning ability or brain speed?  Or does it just demonstrate that the person has trained his brain to do a particular task quicker?  I found an online exercise for "increasing your brain's processing speed."  But I'm suspicious as to whether practicing this exercise will actually increase the speed of neurological connections in any area except the one which has been rehearsed and drilled.

So what's the solution?  Do we just keep plugging away with the kind of activities and books we've been using?  Do we assume that trying these therapies might actually change Maggie's brain speed instead of merely speeding her up on the exercises?  Will increased speed in one task generalize to increased speed in hearing & decision-making & academics & overall problem-solving?  Or will this kind of therapy just take time away from activities that might be more interesting and beneficial in the long-run?

Dad on Moving Day

Last night, Bethany phoned.  She and Evan were moving.  The day was getting away from them faster than they had expected.  Could we help with unpacking the U-Haul?   Of course we could!  We love them, and we've been altogether too little help and support to them in the 10 months they've been living in Wisconsin.  (Besides, it meant a glimpse of their apartment and neighborhood.  For some reason, it's terribly important to me to have a picture in my mind of the home where my loved ones are living.)

When Katie and Nathan moved to and/or from Indiana, we had help from Rheins and Caseys and a few other friends.  When Katie and Nathan moved to Texas, Nathan's dad carried a lot of furniture.  Bep and Evan had help from parents when they first moved to Wisconsin.  When we moved here, our father-confessor took charge of packing the truck while we carried stuff out of the house to the driveway.  As the mom or dad, you don't want to do too much bossing around when the grown-up kids are moving.  And yet ... you want to provide assistance (and the experience you've gained through your previous moves) to the couple who's moving.  And on moving day, the more assistance, the better!

My dad carried a lot of book boxes in his day.  A lot of mattresses and couches and freezers.  A lot clothes boxes.  A whole bunch of boxes filled with toys.  He tied things down.  He packed things in tight.  He made sure items were safe during transport.  He didn't do it just for us and my siblings, but for other people too.  It seems to be just one of those loving things dads (and substitute dads) do.

Happy Paper Clips

I see more paper clips in one day at work than I used to see in a whole year of being a stay-at-home mommy.   On those rare occasions we ventured into an Office Max in years past, I didn't understand why anyone would want to pay extra money for fancy-schmancy paper clips.  They're just paper clips.  They clip paper.  Big whoop.

But now ...  I've changed my mind.  Those zebra-striped and tiger-striped and candy-cane-striped paper clips bring a smile to my face!  I don't know why they're so cheery, but when I come across one, it sure does brighten my day!

Mark

As we've been reading Mark recently, we keep coming across crowds.  There were crowds of people coming out to hear John preach.  Crowds of people listening to Jesus.  Crowds wanting to be healed.  Crowds spilling out of the houses were He was.  So many crowds that He couldn't go into a city but had to preach outside where there was more room.  Crowds crowding around Him so that He couldn't get away to eat supper. 



My car needed a new battery last weekend.  That means I need to re-set the pre-sets on my car radio.  So this week I've been scanning radio stations, trying to hunt up which ones should be tagged by my radio buttons.  This morning I was checking out a station which turned out to be a Christian radio station with a Bible trivia quiz.  So I stay tuned for a couple of minutes.  The show concluded with a kids' Bible song about how important the Bible is, how we love the Bible, how the Bible is our delight ... because it shows us how God wants us to live. 

That's it?  That's what they think the Bible is full of?  Rules?  Behavior guidelines?  Things to do to make God like you?  And that's why they love it?

Those crowds (in Mark's gospel) weren't crowding around Jesus so that they could hear rules.  They got plenty of that from the scribes and Pharisees.  This Man did not teach like the scribes and Pharisees.  He preached something different, something they hadn't heard before, something for which their hearts yearned.  And the crowds poured out of the cities to hear more.

Under the Tuscan Sun

What a waste of a Friday evening!

A romantic comedy.  Set in Italy.  I wanted to see it years ago when it came out.  I kept wanting to see it.  We finally got around to watching it.

We shouldn't have.

The plot involved divorce and gays and fornicating teens.  There was more sex, foul language, and nudity than I expected in a PG-13 movie.  The "message" in the film came from the character who was a hedonistic actress.

And this was billed as an inspiring, uplifting, feel-good movie?

Slugs in the Garden

After I planted lettuce in April, one of the big rains must have washed some of the seeds to the other end of the raised bed.  Eventually, lettuce was popping up in places I hadn't sown seed.  I left it to grow. 

The lettuce I did plant needed thinning.  Week after week I didn't get to it.  We came home from vacation to ready-to-pick heads of Romaine.  The ones at the far end of the garden --where there was plenty of room to spread out-- grew beautifully.  Where I planted, however, was crowded.  The heads were thinner and several were spindly.  But what surprised me most was the slug damage. 

Where there was room to spread out, where air and light circulated around the veggies, I had no chew-marks from the slugs.  The most crowded part of my lettuce-row was the holiest. 

Same thing in the strawberry patch.  I overthinned last fall.  But hey, no slugs this year!

Some Teenagers ...

... give me the creeps.

Gary and I were out biking today, trying to build up a little endurance so that we might be capable of biking to town should we so desire.  We passed three girls. When Gary passed them, I saw them giggling and pointing and smirking behind his back.  When I passed them a few moments later, they did the same thing to me.

So what's their problem?  Shame on us old people for daring to ride bicycles?  Were our bikes not cool enough?  Our clothes not cool enough?  Or (more likely) anybody who's not part of their clique is probably smirk-worthy. 

Call more over-protective.  But that's one of the reasons I'm not wanting Maggie to go to school next year.

Like It or Not, We Have a Two-Party System

During the summer of 1992 (and it seems like it was just the other day, not twenty years ago) the bumper stickers began to appear: "Don't blame me.  I voted for Bush."

About a year later, as people became more and more disenchanted with the President, another bumper sticker appeared: "Don't blame me.  I didn't vote for Clinton."

Those Perot-folks were the people I did blame. 

Bill Clinton      43%
George Bush   37%
Ross Perot      19%

Most of those Perot votes were anti-Bush votes than they were pro-Perot votes, and most of those voters were even more anti-Clinton than they were anti-Bush.  If our country had had preferential voting in 1992, Bush would have been re-elected.

We have a two-party system in this county.  I don't approve of that.  Technically, with what's on the books, we don't have a two-party system, and there is room for third-party candidates.  But that's not the reality.  The reality is that we have a choice of two in the upcoming election.  Either Romney or Obama will be the next president.

Economically, we can choose between the socialist Republicans or the even-more-socialist Democrats.  As many of my friends believe, it's two sides of the same coin.  Personally, I think sliding down the slippery slope at a slower rate is better than careening down it.  There are those who will disagree.

But there's something far more important than economics (and I think the economic state of this nation is pretty darn important).  The HHS mandate would never have happened under Mitt Romney.  Are you aware of what's going on in Sweden to stamp out the gospel and religious freedom?  Life issues are at stake in the November election.  Freedom of religion is at stake in the upcoming election.  No, I don't think Mitt Romney is the best person for the job.  But seeing as how we have a choice between only two men, he is the better man for the job. 

Those who voted for Perot were the ones who really elected Clinton.

Are we going to make the same mistake this November?

Promotion

Along came the perfect job for Gary.  He's tried for other promotions and not gotten them.  But the person who was promoted in those instances really was the better guy for the job. 

But this job.  This was tailor-made for Gary.  Several co-workers who saw the job posted told him, "That's got your name written all over it."  The position was supposed to be filled immediately.  Gary applied.  Two months dragged by.  Finally someone else applied.  And we learned the day before we left on vacation that this other person was chosen for the promotion.

It makes you wonder what God has planned, up there around the bend, where we can't see yet.

What IS This Crazy-Talk?

Mark 3 -- They accuse Jesus of having a demon in Him.  What He's saying is so outlandish. 

Acts 2 -- On Pentecost, they accuse the apostles of being drunk in the middle of the morning.  Who ever heard such crazy-talk like what they were preaching?

Forgiveness.
For sinners.
Who certainly don't deserve it.

Not your standard religious message.

If I Had a Car

Gary's at district convention.  Kids are at a pool party.  If I had a car, I'd be getting a second dose of what I had Friday afternoon: I'd be at the beach doing NOTHING.

During a week of family reunion, I enjoyed talking with cousins and Mom, playing with kiddoes, trivia night, and my first exposure to Bunko.  It wasn't until the last day, though, that I did NOTHING.  A couple of hours with nothing to cook, nothing to do, just sitting in the sun or floating in the pool.  A few hours of listening to birdies tweet, with the sun beating down on me, floating floating floating ... I haven't felt so mellow in a long long time.  It's refreshing! 

And I'm definitely up for ditching my responsibilities and having another go at NOTHINGness.  But my car did not behave so well on the trip home from the reunion.  Thankfully, we made it home (albeit with only two stops) without roadside assistance and without anyone wetting her pants.  Well, actually, we didn't make it all the way home.  We made it to my mechanic's shop.  We'll find out the car's diagnosis tomorrow morning.

In theory, if I tackle enough housework, yardwork, and laundry today, maybe we could manage some beach time when I have my car back.  (So have I fooled you into thinking I'll actually be that productive?  I can't quite convince myself of it either.)

Trust Not in Princes

On Wednesday I kept finding myself singing The Election Song.  "Trust not in princes they are but mortal.  Earthborn they are and soon decay....  Since then no man can help afford, trust ye in Christ, our God and Lord"  (TLH 26).  I would stop myself and think, "Wait.  My guy won.  This song isn't right for today.  This is the hymn you sing when your guy loses.  What should I sing instead?  Maybe the te Deum?"

But you know what?  Even when my guy loses, it's right to sing "We praise Thee, O God.  We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord ...."  And when when my guy wins, it's right to sing, "Trust not in princes ...."  Because the Lord knows what He's doing, regardless of who wins an election. 

Nevertheless, I still want to do the Happy Dance when think of Tuesday night's election results.

IEP Meeting -- Attention Deficit

Both times Maggie was evaluated by psychologists regarding her learning disabilities, we were told that she has ADD.  Really?  I'm just not seeing it.  When they told me this in California, I attributed the diagnosis to a screw-up in the evaluation procedure or the scoring of the test.  But they came up with the same findings again this spring.

However, the psychologist informed me of something else this spring -- Maggie's abysmal "processing speed."  I believe this accounts for the so-called problem of attention deficit.

When the kids tried to teach me the game of Munchkins, I couldn't understand.  I couldn't learn.  There was too much unfamiliar to me.  There were no "learning hooks" to which I could connect the new information they were giving me.  It was ALL new.  And it quickly became muddled.

My friend Glenda wrote about her recent trip to Germany, and how she fared during church services where she didn't speak the language.  Yes, she grasped parts of it.  Yes, God was still giving to her even when she was lost.  But given the thoughts swirling in my mind in wake of our IEP meeting, what struck me most was how Glenda (a grown woman who loves to sit through church every Sunday) had the wiggles and had to struggle to pay attention. 

I usually have very good hearing.  But sometimes you're in a room that is particularly noisy and you miss a lot of what the other person is saying.  You grab some of the message by lip reading, by facial expressions and body language, and you catch some of the words.  But it's awfully hard work to pay attention and get it all.  (I don't know how my mom does it!  She's impressive.)  It's hard to think about what the person says when you're expending so much energy just trying to hear it.

So now, if you're a girl whose brain just doesn't go as fast as other people's brains, you need more time.  And if you can't slow 'em down, pretty soon you're just going to quit paying attention.  That's not ADD.  That's a perfectly normal reaction. 




PS:  This is another example of how ADD is being overdiagnosed.

Learning Munchkins

The kids loved the game Munchkins.  Several years ago they arm-twisted invited me to join them.  "Oh, it's easy, Mom.  It's not like those strategy games you don't like.  You can learn this!"

So we sat down to play.  They were trying to teach me.  But there was all this stuff about elves and ogres and trolls and different kinds of characters -- vocabulary that wasn't part of my daily life, that's for sure.  I remember how the kids patiently explained the rules, the cards, the characters.  I remember how they patiently walked me through the game, as a big sister might do for the 3-yr-old who's learning to play Candyland. 

And it made no sense.

Granted, at that point, things were a wee bit stressful in life.  And this was too much.  I didn't understand anything they were telling me.  Not about how the game worked.  Nor about the kinds of creatures that were part of the game.  Nothing.  I ended up putting my head down on the table and crying.  I thought my head would explode with all the details that were a jumble in my brain. 

I think I spent an hour lying on my bed and crying, distraught that I was simply unable to comprehend.  "What's happened to my mind?  I used to be able to do anything I determined to do.  This is just a game.  A game that kids can play.  And it's entirely beyond me!"

We moved.  Things have become more stable.  A year ago, I was capable of learning the procedures at work.  Even in the upheaval of moving, I managed (eventually) to learn where the foil and the mixing bowls were tucked away in the new kitchen.  This past Christmas, Matt & Rachel bought our family a cool board game that I enjoyed playing.  It is conceivable (!) that I might be able to learn Munchkins now. 

But I don't know to.  The memories are bad.  The fear of failure remains.

IEP Meeting -- Where's the Bar?

So, at the IEP meeting, the testers explained where Maggie scored in comparison to other kids. 

They told us that her reading level was 8th grade.  When I was testing her reading level a couple of months ago, I determined 4th or 5th grade. 

They told us that her math level was late 6th grade.  She's managing in the 4th-grade Saxon book.  She's about 3/4 of the way through.  We've been on it for over two years now.  And the school folks are telling me she's scoring two years ahead of where I think she is.

On the one hand, woo hoo for Maggie that she's doing okay.

On the other hand, what does this say about the kids at the school, if what I call 4th-grade work is what their teachers call 7th-grade work??  And what does this say for the society that these kids will be part of?

IEP Meeting

For those who asked to hear about the IEP meeting: 
Because of working extra hours this week and because of end-of-the-year events at our church's school, I haven't had much chance to think through the meeting.

1.  The people we met were very nice.  Even if Maggie doesn't become a student at the public school, they have offered different kinds of help and suggestions.   I was impressed!

2.  It sounds like Medicaid is available only if we sign her up for SSI.  We'll have to look into that.

3.  We learned that there is such a thing as "partial guardianship."  We'd been told that we should put Maggie under guardianship, but she seems too able for that.  And yet, there are things that both she and we think she needs protection from and help with.  Partial guardianship may be just the thing.  We'll have to look into it.

4.  She does not need to go to the public school in order to be eligible to receive services from the State.  I have been told repeatedly by people in the County and the State that eligibility is normally determined by teacher/counselor evaluations as to how the child struggles in school.  Well, I guess that's not going to apply to us now.  Maggie's testing showed her to be severely developmentally delayed in processing speed.  That means she thinks slowly and hears slowly and makes decisions slowly.  She tested so low on this that the representative from the State said Maggie would be "category 1" and go up near the top of the waiting list when we are ready to sign her up for help in finding a job.

There's still a lot to figure out.  But it's looking less likely that public school will become part of our lives later this year.

The Holy Spirit Points to Christ

John 16:  Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes, He will guide you into all truth.

John 14: What was that about Jesus being the Way, the Truth, and the Life??

The Strawberry Bed

So the picture on the left is what the strawberry bed looked like on Sunday afternoon. 

On Monday afternoon, Maggie and I worked for less than an hour.

By Tuesday evening the patch was shocking.  No weeds.  Just lots and lots of dirt.  Maggie worked really hard.  Andrew helped too.  Wow -- it's beautiful!  Aren't they awesome?!

Wood Sorrel

There's a reason to yank these beautiful flowers out of my strawberry patch.

But tell me again why I'm pulling them from my flower beds?