Today is Sunday. As on most every Sunday, we piled in the van and headed off to church. Today was different. Daddy wasn’t along because he was out of town. Ok. So this should really be no big deal. Before Daddy was an assistant pastor, I wrestled with 3 small children for about 6 years by myself in the pew every Sunday.

However, number 4 was never around in those days. Number 4 is cute. She is also the BABY, and she knows it. There is great indignation when I correct her. So today, whe was super wiggly and just a tad loud while playing with her little doll during the sermon. So I took the doll away and made her big sister put away her dolls, too. No dolls to play with or make noise with, that’s ok. Number 4 is resourceful. She can make a ruckus by moving from one seat to another or throwing her head into my chest when she sits on my lap. Then I thought, “I’ll give her the nice quiet Teddy Bear. She’ll hold it quietly and sit nicely on my lap while she cuddles with it.” What kind of drugs was I on when that thought went through my mind? Did she sit nicely on my lap and cuddle sweetly with the Teddy Bear? Oh no. She started tossing it in the air. Before I could get control of the situation, the bear landed in the lap of the girl behind us. Thankfully, that girl was our senior pastor’s teenage daughter, and their whole family thought this antic was funny.

After another 10 minutes or so of her wiggling around and moving from place to place, the sermon finally ended. I breathed a big sigh of relief, and we headed to the fellowship hall where wiggling and giggling and talking are acceptable behaviors.

You may be wondering about the diet efforts. Well, I must confess they haven’t been going well for about the last month. Excuses abound. However, I think the number one excuse has some merit. I started working a very-close-to-full-time schedul about 3 weeks ago, and it has been hard to get things together and plan for meals. This has been a big transition for our family, so the diet has been a casualty. That being said, exercise has not completely ended, and I don’t feel that all my work of the spring and early summer is lost. So getting back on the wagon soon should get me headed in the right direction once again.

Work . . . I took a full-time job that started a few weeks ago. In August, I am working part-time mainly because of Mark’s travels. I am also taking a short vacation by myself at the end of the month using frequent flyer miles to go to CA to visit Michelle and Garrett Craw. In September, I am supposed to begin working a more full-time schedule.

The last week, Mark has been gone. First to NY to speak at a conference, and now of to CA to participate in Garrett Craw’s installation service for his new church plant. His absence has made me more thankful for him than ever. He really is a good dad, and he takes on a lot more responsibility for the children than many dads do. With working in the mix, I have also experienced a taste of what it is like to be a single mom with all the responsibility of keeping up with a work schedule and getting the kids to childcare or school. Keeping up a juggling act like this on a daily basis would horrify me. I am so very thankful that Mark is a good husband and father and that this is not required of me year-round 24/7.

The kids went back to school yesterday. Their school starts off with a half-day, and then day 2 (today) gets things going full-swing. They are happy with their teachers, and it seems like things are off to a good start. I have some concerns for my oldest and youngest school-age children this year, so if you think of it, pray for them and for me that school would be a positive experience.

One thing I am trying to pray about for all 3 kids at school is their friendships. They struggle with making good friends, yet they are very social. So they hurt when friendship situations don’t go as they had hoped (like most people do). So I am trying to pray for them all everyday specifically in regard to their friends. One big hope/request is that they would each find one good friend at school who likes them as much as they like the friend. (Did that make sense?) If you’re someone who prays for me/us on occassion, this is something you can pray for, too.

My loving husband, Mark, tagged me for this little blog game. In the name of submission and procrastinating, I will post my answers.

1. One book that changed your life:

Ordering Your Private World by Gordon McDonald. I read this in college, and it taught me a lot about the relationship between personal integrity and devotion to God. The irony was not long after this book was published, the author committed adultery. However, he later repented publicly and accepted church discipline for his actions; his relationship with his wife and family was restored as well.

2. One book that you

I’m finally going to post what I’ve been saying to Mark all along about all this Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul stuff.

We’ve been dealing with these issues in our personal lives for about the last 3 years. What are these issues? Well, to be honest, even though Mark talks about the stuff all the time, and I’ve read a lot about it, I can’t even begin to explain the issues at hand. What I can do is say that I don’t think it matters all that much to the people in the pew.

The people who sit in the pews of the churches where someone is sympathetic to the FV or NPP are not being taught heresy every week. They are not being taught that works gets them into heaven. They are not being taught that baptism saves them. They are being taught that Jesus loves them. They are being taught to raise their children to love Jesus. They are being taught that Jesus died on the cross and rose again from the dead to save them.

I imagine that the churches with pastors who are unsympathetic to FV and NPP can agree with the last three sentences I wrote.

So, what’s the big deal? Yes. I think pastors who study the Word of God for a living need to discuss the intricacies of theology. Yes. I think they need to learn from one another. And, I don’t think that the people in the pews need to just accept all that their pastors say. But I don’t think that the people in the pews on either side have to wrap their minds around these theological issues in order to receive the gift of God’s salvation through Jesus.