A letter from Mom to Boys about electronics..

Dear Boys,

Do you remember the day we went to the drugstore and the lady said, “Wow, you are the first kids I’ve seen all day with nothing in your hands.” Remember how she marveled at how you didn’t need an electronic device to carry through the store? I know how her words made you feel. I know how it reminded you that you are different because your mom limits your electronic usage. I know it was yet another reminder.

The same reminder you receive when we are out to eat and you notice all the kids playing their phones and iPads instead of talking to their parents. I know it was a reminder of all the sporting events where you feel you are the only kids whose parents are making them cheer on their siblings rather than burying themselves in a phone. I know it was another reminder to you that you feel different in this electronic age we live in.

Well, boys, it’s not you. It’s me. Me being selfish maybe. You see I can’t bear to miss a moment with you. Let me explain.

I want to talk to you when we are out to eat. I want to listen to your questions. I want to have training opportunities. I want to allow space for conversation that can take us deeper. And if you are always distracted with electronics, well… I might miss those moments.

I could give you all the statistics about how damaging it is to your development, your attention span, your ability to learn. While all of those are valid reasons to keep electronics away, that is not my primary reason why I say no to you so much. It’s more than that. Much more. I need you to understand this.

When we are together, I want all of you. The fullness of you. I want to experience you. Truly experience you. And I can’t do that with you when there is an electronic device between us. You see it acts as a barrier. I want to see what brings life to those eyes. I want to watch the wonder and magic dance across your face as you discover the wonders of this world. I want to watch you as you figure things out. I want to watch you process life, develop your thoughts. I want to know you. I want to know your passions. I want to watch you as you discover your God-given talents and gifts. And when you hide behind a screen, I miss out on all of that. And my time with you….well it will be over in the blink of an eye.

I want to guide you into an understanding of life and who you are. Boys, kids today are starved for attention, true connection and relationship. I don’t want you to feel starved. That is why I say no. I know that feeding the desire to play in your device is like giving you candy. It satisfies for a moment but provides no long term nutrition. It does more harm than good.

I don’t want to look back when I’m out of the trenches of child training and regret a second I had with you. I don’t want to merely survive. I want to thrive in this life with you. We are in it together. We are a family.

Yes, when we are waiting at a doctor’s office for an hour, it would be eaiser to quiet you with my phone. But if I did that, I fear I would send you a message that says I’d rather hush you than hear those precious words falling from your lips.

I can’t bear the thought of allowing you to miss out on the wonders and mysteries of this world. When you are transfixed on a screen, the beauty of this world will be lost to you. In every moment beauty is waiting to be discovered. I don’t want you to miss it.

I want you to be comfortable with yourself. I want you not to feel a constant need to be entertained and distracted. If you stay behind a screen, you never have to experience just being you, alone with your thoughts. I want you to learn to think, to ponder life, to make discoveries, to create. You have been gifted by God in unique ways. I want those to bloom. They can’t bloom in the glow of a screen. They need life, real life, to bring them to light.

I want you to be confident in who you are. I want you to be able to look people in the eyes and speak life into them. If I allow you to live behind a screen, you get little practice relating eye to eye. To truly know someone you have to look into their eyes. It’s a window into their heart. You see what can’t be seen in cyberspace.

When I tell you no to devices, I’m giving you a gift. And I’m giving me a gift. It’s a gift of relationship. True human connection. It’s precious and a treasure. And you mean so much to me that I don’t want to miss a second of it.

I love how God created your mind. I love to hear the way you think and process life. I love to see what makes you laugh. I love to watch those eyes widen when a new discovery is made. And when your head is behind a screen, I miss all of that. And so do you.

In this life we have few cheerleaders. In this family we will cheer each other on. I know it is boring to sit at swim lessons and watch your brother learn to swim. I know it is boring to sit through a 2 hour baseball practice. And in all honesty, it would be easy for me to give you the iPad and keep you quiet and occupied. But we all lose out when we do that. You will miss out on watching your brother’s new accomplishments. You will deprive him of the joy of his moment to shine for you. You will miss out on what it means to encourage each other.

I want you to grow up knowing the world doesn’t revolve around you. (One day your wife will thank me) I want you to learn to give selflessly of yourself….to give away your time, your talents, your treasures. If I distract you with electronics when you should be cheering for your brother, well, I’m simply telling you that your happiness is more important than giving your time to someone other than yourself.

This world needs more selflessness. This world needs more connection. This world needs more love. We can’t learn these behind a screen.

I want to raise sons that know how to look deeply into the eyes of the ones they love. I want my future daughters in law to know what it’s like to have a husband that looks deeply into her eyes because he knows the value of human relationships and the treasure of love. And that is best communicated eye to eye.

I want to watch your face illuminated by the majesty of life – not the glow of a screen. I want all of you. Because I only have you for a short while. When you pack up and leave for college, I want to look back with no regrets over the time I spent with you. I want to look back and remember how your eyes sparkled when we talked. I want to look back and remember how I actually knew those little quirky details of your life because we had time enough to be bored together.

It’s ok to be bored. We can be bored together. And we can discover new things together.

I love you. I love you too much to quiet you with an iPhone or an iPad or a DS. And I can’t even apologize, because I’m really not sorry. I’m doing this so that I won’t be sorry one day.

With all my love,

Mom

Taken from here.

Someone's in the kitchen with mommy....

Someone's in the kitchen I know..o.o.o

Someone's in the kitchen with MOMMY!!

Sitting in the o'le bumbo!

Wee man is 11 weeks old now.

Ball cap I bought at a garage sale.. :)

Some more pictures of him enjoying the weather..

  

So... Bucko boy... got sprayed by a skunk this past Friday evening.. in the middle of Ian finishing up his last paper for this semester.. needless to say he ended up getting a bath at 11pm... outside.. in the cold air because we didn't want anymore smell in the house. 

He is smelling alot better now.. anyone want a family of skunks?? :)

10 weeks already

Wee Macleod is 10 weeks old this past Lord's day. 

We had a Doctor's appt last week and he measured at 10lb 14oz 23.5in long.

Here are some pictures of him enjoying the sunshine!

 

I brought him inside because I didn't want him to get burned... he started complaining so I brought him back outside and he loved it!!

Graduation video link

Here is the graduation video if anyone was not able to join in that evening but would like to still watch the whole thing...

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=56148671

Link for the graduation tonight

I was told it is easiest to click on it right about 7:30pm..(our time).. so 12:30am UK time... now if it doesn't work for afterwards.. I will see if I can get one for you that will work afterwards..

-http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=hnrc

Some pictures.. :)

Love this picture!!

Poor guy slept on his hand.. and woke up with a hand print on his cheek!

Staring intently at the burp cloth..

Talking to Daddy

2 months old!

Hope those of you who wanted to view the baptism were able to. What a joyous occasion yet it comes with great responsibility to us as parents.

Another big event happening next Friday is Ian's graduation from PRTS with a Masters or Divinity degree. He is staying on for one more year to finish a Theology major. For those of you who would like to watch the graduation.. I will try to post where to find it closer to the day.. for overseas folks.. the graduation starts at 7pm which would be 12am your time.. if I am not mistaken it should be available afterwards for anyone who would like to listen to it. Ian Hamilton will be the speaker that evening.

Some pictures of the wee man!

If my scale is correct... little Joshua has gained roughly 3 1/2 lbs since his 2 week appt.. he is now about 10lb!

Bright eyed just looking around

Loves laying like this

Little wave... :)

Little smile!!

He really doesn't like these things.. he lasts maybe 20 seconds..lol

Daddy singing a song with Joshua

He will sit like this instead of playing on the mats in the next picture.

He let me fold a load of laundry and iron a shirt before he got fussy sitting like this..

All put in the corner because he doesn't like to use them..lol

How Women Can Make Church a Safe Place for Men

When we dress provocatively, we dishonor God and display a lack of regard for His holiness. We can also become a distraction for our brothers in Christ.

I'd been traveling all weekend, and my flight from California to the East Coast got in at midnight. All I wanted to do was go home, drop my suitcases and hit the sack.

But the story my husband had waiting for me made me drop my jaw and want to hit—well, not the sack!

"She was just visiting our church service this morning," he began haltingly.

He didn't notice her at first, he said. But then came "greeting time."

"Bob, I'd like you to meet John's cousin," a friend said as he introduced her.

That's when my husband's mind began to whirl. He'd heard about her. She was the one with the perfect—well, let's just say she qualified to be a fitting model for Victoria's Secret. You figure out what was perfect!

Through the rest of the service he was restless. Intrigued. Annoyed.

He wasn't the only one; I asked.

Many of our friends were introduced to her that day, and like us, they had heard about her unique career. I asked all the men the same question: "What did she look like?"

The funny thing is, none of them could quite remember her face. But they all remembered her skin-tight leather pants with the lace-up fly.

Please understand that my husband, Bob, is a godly man in full-time Christian ministry. Like most men, though, he is subject to visual temptation.

Christian psychologist Mark Laaser estimates that 30 percent of Christian pastors and leaders struggle with pornography. Among Christian men in general, more than 60 percent are estimated to struggle with continual sexual compulsions of some type.

Those are scary numbers. I wouldn't share them with you if they hadn't been substantiated repeatedly.

My husband's ministry involves helping men of all ages live lives of mental purity—a battle he himself wages daily. Bob gets into the faces of other men and asks them to name the specific distractions they need to remove from their lives in order to live in sexual integrity.

You'd expect them to name temptations such as the Internet, R-rated movies, magazine covers, even the giant Victoria's Secret display ads in the mall. But sadly, they often point to a surprisingly different pit—and they fall into it every Sunday.

"I'm struggling with the way women dress in church," they groan. They are specific in adding those two words—in church—because the location is what makes them feel so vulnerable.

After all, isn't church supposed to be a place where they can go to be free from temptation? What's a guy to do when the woman in his Sunday school class keeps showing up in a tight shirt and miniskirt, announcing it was a little cold in the parking lot?

I suppose he could sit on the front row every week. But come on, sisters! It's time we accept some responsibility for this predicament.

Many of us are sinning where the men in our churches are concerned—and in the process, we're sinning against God.

As Christian women, our greatest desire should be to please God in everything we do. First Peter 3:3 reminds us, "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment. ... Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight" (NIV).

But some of us are getting up on Sunday mornings and adorning ourselves in ways that aren't pleasing to God. The outfits we choose are intended to cause all eyes—especially men's eyes—to be on us.

For the sake of our brothers in Christ, not to mention the health of our personal relationships with God, we need to do four things:

1. We need to understand the power of certain kinds of visual images. Have you heard of the Gestalt theory? It's a visual design theory that teaches designers to control the attention of their viewers by forcing the viewers to mentally complete a visual image.

According to the theory, the challenge of completing an image that is incomplete intrigues the human brain. Our minds will always pause to finish an unfinished picture.

Try it yourself by checking out a trio of circles. What else do you see?

You think you see a triangle, don't you? That's because a triangle is the most common image that your brain can come up with to complete the picture.

Now let's apply the Gestalt theory to the issue at hand. What happens when a man sees a woman walk by wearing a low-cut blouse or a long, tight skirt with a slit all the way up the sides? He pauses—maybe even does a double take—because he sees something in part, and his brain wants to complete the picture.

He can't help it. It's a simple fact of visual science!

2. We need to understand the special weakness of men for a woman's beauty.The power of the Gestalt principle is multiplied by the fact that men have a God-given craving for a woman's beauty. Proverbs 5:18-19 says, "Rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always. May you be ever intoxicated by her sex."

I italicized two of the last four words in that verse because I changed them to better reflect the actual Hebrew meaning of the passage. The God of the universe looks down at woman, created to be a physical masterpiece, and man, created to enjoy the view, and actually encourages man to be fully intoxicated by her sexuality. Wow!

When a guy gets "intoxicated," his body can't help but react. Physiologically, many of our bodies' responses are activated by something called the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This system is controlled not by the will but by the environment.

For example, have you ever lost one of your small children at the mall, if only for a moment? Do you remember the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach? The rapid pulse?

Your body reacted automatically to the situation. You cannot control such reactions by choice. That's how the ANS works—it forces the body to respond to the environment.

Sexual arousal operates the same way. Certain things in the environment—what we see, what we hear, what we smell—work together to tell the brain that the time is right for sexual response. The ANS takes over, and the brain reacts by sending specific chemicals through the body.

In a man this reaction is particularly strong since God created him to be visually stimulated. If he sees a woman walk by wearing revealing clothing, his pulse may increase; his body temperature may rise. Other changes may take place as well.

Of course, all this is beautiful and even celebrated by almighty God when the woman responsible for the arousal is the man's wife. But too often that's not the case.

Our culture constantly bombards us with sexual content in movies, magazines, advertisements and more. It's enough to overwhelm even the most godly man.

And though he can choose how to act upon this arousal, he frequently cannot control that it occurs. The environment controls it.

Exposing a man to continual visual stimulation is like hanging a noose around the neck of his spiritual life! Yet many Christian women contribute to the hanging Sunday after Sunday.

3. We need to call immodesty what it really is. The Bible is emphatic: We must never do anything to cause a brother or sister in Christ to stumble (see 1 Cor. 10:32). That's an uncomfortable challenge for those of us who've been lulled into thinking, "What's the big deal? It's just fashion!"

We may squirm even more when we read Ephesians 5:3: "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people."

Get that? Not a hint of sexual sin! But aren't we hinting at sin when we wear a low-cut blouse, a tight T-shirt or a super-short skirt?

According to its Hebrew and Greek definitions, sin means missing God's intended purpose for our lives. So what is God's purpose when it comes to our sexuality? Proverbs 5:18-19 says that it's to intoxicate one man with our beauty.

We are no doubt quite capable of getting many stares. But God says that the unique characteristics of our sensual beauty are to be treasured secrets—secrets kept for one man. When we dress immodestly, creating arousal in many men, we miss the purpose of the carefully crafted masterpiece that is our body.

Is it just a matter of fashion? No. Immodesty is sin.

taken from here.