its-all-good-in-theory - Tumblr blog

[its-all-good-in-theory]

Learning As I Go

Parenting has given me so many more opportunities than I ever would have dreamed of for learning about my faith and who God is.  I thought I was put here to teach my children some things, but I am truly more of the student the older I get.  So a couple of weeks ago, I texted one of my boys ”...it breaks my heart when you don’t trust me”.  In the very second I hit send, the Holy Spirit pricked my heart and the thought was present in my mind that this is how my Father in Heaven hurts when I don’t trust Him.  Bingo... I was the student again.  So even though I was in the middle of yet another dramatic episode in the life and times of the Rantamaki children, I wondered what it was I was supposed to be learning from this whole situation.

Over the next couple of days I reflected on that thought and considered how I might trust God more in my life in some tangible way.  It’s just like God to bring the next piece of the puzzle along just when I was ready for it.  My heart was prepared after all this reflection so I didn’t miss it when it came in the mail.  I received a card from a friend and in it was a sheet filled with quotes that are inspirational and encouraging from various different missionaries.  The following quote from E. Stanley Jones (missionary to India 1884-1973) jumped off the page at me when I read it.  It said, “Prayer is surrender--surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will.  If I throw out a boat-hook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.”

It was round two in the moment that I read it, I knew how true it was that in my prayer life, I wasn’t trusting my Heavenly Father completely.  In this particular season of life, we as a family have a couple serious needs that we must trust God to help us with.  We’ve done all we can do, and the rest is up to Him.  On the day to day, I thought I had been fairly successful controlling my day time thoughts regarding worry.  But I realized that my prayer life is where the truth really comes out.  I found myself literally begging God to help me in a way that sounds desperate and doubtful.  Not that I think it’s wrong to pray earnestly, especially on behalf of someone else, but even though it sounds ridiculous to think one could pull the shore to the boat, that’s kind of what I was trying to do in my prayer life.  I wanted God to conform to my will of the way I thought things should be.  If I was trusting God to meet my needs completely, my prayer would reflect that trust and peace when I know full well that He will hear me and take care me.  It’s just like I tell my children, it’s not the words that they used that were wrong, it was their tone in which they said those words where things went wrong.  My tone was wrong.  I can pray earnestly, but a trusting prayer will pull me to my Savior’s heart instead of me trying to pull Him towards me.

I just share this learning experience with you as I marvel at how God teaches us day by day and brings us gently and lovingly into a closer relationship with Him.  It’s not fancy.  It’s not loud or bold.  His voice is quiet but firm.  When He speaks, it can’t be ignored.  No matter how it hurts to hear the truth, I know He is right.  As I type this, I can’t help but think of the words to old hymn that I heard growing up...”It’s just like Jesus to roll the clouds away, It’s just like Jesus to keep me day by day, It’s just like Jesus all along the way, It’s just like His great love.”  The second verse of this song says, “Sometimes when clouds of trouble bedim the sky above, I cannot see my Savior’s face, I doubt His wondrous love; But He, from Heaven’s mercy seat, beholding my despair, in pity bursts the clouds between, and shows me He is there.” Author- Edna Randolph Worrell (1903).  I always loved this old song and it speaks to me yet again.  It’s just like Jesus to teach me day by day.  It’s just like Jesus to help me trust Him more. It’s just like Jesus to give me peace during the storm.  It’s just like His great love.

[its-all-good-in-theory]

Why the title?

So I named this blog “its-all-good-in-theory” but why?  I thought I should take a moment to answer this question.  If ever there was a rule follower who tried her best to do everything right, it was me.  I was awarded a certificate in 9th grade from my Bible teacher called “Striving for Righteousness”.  I honestly wasn’t sure it was meant to be a compliment since I had fussed at him about a grade of mine he had entered in his book that was incorrect.  He gave mine out last and said to the entire class that he wasn’t sure what character quality to name me for so he made this one up for me instead.  But for better or for worse, he was right.  I always tried to follow every rule because I had the expectation that if I did everything right, God would bless me.  The problem is that how I defined a “blessing” and what God’s blessings truly are were two very different things.

Somehow in the grand scheme of things God intervenes on our behalf because no matter how hard we try, the end results of life situations are not often within our control.  We certainly cannot control other people and honestly, sometimes we aren’t able to fully control our own selves as we would like to.  Even the Apostle Paul said that the good that he wants to do, he doesn’t, and the evil which he does not want to do, he does. (Rom. 7:19)  We can strive to follow all of the rules and in theory make our plans for the future, but the future does not belong to us.  The famous poet Robert Burns once said, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. 

The good things that I planned for my life as a young woman did not transpire.  The goals I aspired to did not come to pass or took many more years than I ever would have imagined to complete.  The accomplishments that I thought were expected of me turned out to go completely wrong.  I wasn’t able to finish college due to lack of funds, my first marriage ended in divorce, and now as a mother of teens/young adults I’ve felt the sting of others’ critical looks as my children have dabbled in all of the things the world has to offer.  Much to my chagrin, no matter how I led my children in morning devotions studying the Bible for 16 years, my children are bound and determined to prove to themselves that I was too strict, or that I sheltered them too much.  So I wait and watch as the Lord deals with them and their expectations much like He did with me.  We all go through it; it just may look at little different in all of our lives.

What I see now though as an adult hopefully halfway through my life is that at age 20 I thought that I knew exactly what my life was going to look like.  I knew who I wanted to marry.  I knew what I wanted to study in college.  I had big dreams.  I was creating a masterpiece in my mind.  This was my life’s work right?  I had spent a good 16 years planning all these things out.  What I didn’t realize is that my masterpiece would have looked like this.

It was a drawing of stick figures.  Nothing more than a three year old could have made.  And no matter how difficult it was for me that my Father in Heaven took that away from me and put a clean canvas in front of me, it was necessary.  I needed to learn how to paint a masterpiece, and He was ready to teach me.  I wasn’t ready to be taught though.  I was angry that He took my stick drawing away from me.  I didn’t know how my life would turn out without all of things that I thought that I had wanted. 

I also didn’t know that when He taught me how to paint my life’s masterpiece that I would have to suffer in order to learn.  Humility was what I was lacking.  I couldn’t learn anything without this character quality and so began my lesson in humility as I embarked on marriage and motherhood with an abusive husband.  Not everyone has to attend the school of hard knocks, but I guess I did.  Those experiences made me who I am today.  They will be a very essential part of my life’s masterpiece when I finish my life on this earth.  What I learned in those very difficult eight years I wouldn’t trade now to have had an easier life.  The master creator and artist knows best how the deep dark colors of the painting that may look like a mess in the beginning will look amazingly beautiful when it is done.

This is what I aspire to now, that the Master artist would make a beautiful painting of my life because He knows best what will look gorgeous in the end.  I recently attended a funeral service for an amazing lady that lived 97 years on this earth.  That day I witnessed what a masterpiece the Lord can make of someone’s life when they are willing to be taught by Him.  I can only hope that if I stay willing to learn and willing to be humble to whatever the Lord allows in my life that He can make my life’s work half as beautiful as hers was.  I think many of us get stuck when God takes away our artwork and trades it out for a new canvas and clean brushes.  I don’t honestly think I’m alone in that experience.  May we be willing to embrace a clean slate, a change of plans, or a difficult experience so that we may be able to enjoy the blessing of a grand masterpiece when our lives are through because God is good. 

“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man: that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.  Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Eph. 3:14-21

[its-all-good-in-theory]

The Mind of a Parent

Recently, one of my boys told me that when he was younger, he was praying for something very desperately, and that he prayed every morning and every evening.  He has now decided that God does not love him because God didn’t answer his prayer.  I’ve been thinking all week about how I can help him understand that God doesn’t always give us the answers to our prayers that we are looking for in ways that we desire. My son sees God as disconnected and unloving towards us because it is within His power to make all the bad things go away, yet He doesn’t always do that.  

Many years ago, I read the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, and they give great advice about listening to friends or relatives that try to transfer their hurt or angry feelings onto us and how we can respond by saying, “I hear you.” That allows them to know that we are listening and care enough to let them be heard, but we are not taking on their feelings ourselves or necessarily agreeing with them in how they feel.  I was thinking about how we as parents listen to our children when they are very young as well.  Sometimes it’s real work to genuinely listen to a three-year-old talk about anything! The connection in my mind is that God as our Father does listen to us, but may not give us what we think we want when we ask Him. Although He does say, “I hear you and I’m right beside you through this” (Heb. 2:18, Heb.13:5-6).

When our children are young, we hear them tell us of the child that was mean on the playground or the other toddler in the nursery who took their toy.  On and on life goes, as they come home with stories of a child at school that wasn’t kind or said something mean.  You and I know, that we cannot always step in and fix all those perceived wrongs.  We honestly cannot even explain why we won’t fix things in a way they will understand. We just don’t go to the other child and take the toy back even though it lies within our power to do so.  It occurred to me that this is the same as why God doesn’t make everything right or fix something that we see as wrong.  We just wouldn’t understand.  What He does say in the Bible, is that He will never leave us and that He loves us. He promises us that He hears our prayers.  He’s the parent saying, “I hear you; I see you, and I love you” (Rom.6:26-28, Ps.116:1-2).

Our children at toddler age are not able to understand that enduring a wrong, a slight, or an unkind word is part of what teaches us forgiveness, empathy, compassion, and leaving revenge in God’s hands. But when we say, “I hear you, I’m listening to you, and I love you”, I believe that we are preparing them to understand better how God answers prayer.  As adults we read His Word and can repeatedly hear God telling us how much He loves us, but if our kids aren’t in God’s Word each day, they aren’t hearing these words from Him for themselves. To them, He is silent in their world.  They are expecting Him to give them what they ask for without understanding that allowing difficulties and pain is a part of our growing process.  Just like if we don’t listen to our children talk to us, they will feel that we don’t love them; they can wrongly interpret that God doesn’t love them. They don’t hear Him or sense His presence standing beside them saying, “I see you; I love you, and I am with you always”. As a parent, it’s imperative that I teach and then remind my children that God does love them and listen to them, but He doesn’t often make everything better and fair even though it is within His power to do so. No different than why I’m not going to go punch a kid in the nose just because he said something mean to my kid. God is not going to explain to us why, because we couldn’t understand. But we do know that God is helping us grow and allowing us to suffer things that are hard to better prepare us for the future. God tells us in His Word how much He loves us, and that He works all things together for our good when we love Him and obey Him.

I’ve lived long enough to know that God does do miracles for His children when it fits into His plan for our lives. We have to teach our children to wait for it. His timing is not our timing because His ways and His thoughts are so much higher than ours. It’s really no different than as a parent why I won’t defend my toddler in the church nursery to get their toy back, but if someone was bullying them in fifth grade for instance, I’m going to talk with the teacher and principal and do something to protect my child. My knowledge as an adult is higher than my child’s, and I have understanding that they don’t to have as to when to intervene and when to let it go.

I’ve also lived long enough to have experienced some very bitter pills to swallow. I prayed for eight years for relief from a very abusive situation. I was changed by the experiences I suffered. I have an understanding now that I never would have had otherwise. As I went through those times, I can honestly say, I wasn’t really sure that God did love me either. But He taught me that while I suffered. It’s a mystery that one must experience for themselves. Today, I don’t second guess any more whether or not my heavenly Father cares for me. I know it absolutely. No one can experience healing unless they’ve been wounded. We can’t truly appreciate unconditional love unless we’ve experienced hate or indifference. How can we appreciate the light if there was no darkness? If God made us all to do whatever He wanted all the time, we would never know the depths of His love and sacrifice to make us whole after we sinned against Him. This fallen, corrupt world is the only environment in which we can be amazed at His grace freely given to evil and hateful people. But as a parent loves his child and would not give his child a stone if he wanted a piece of bread, much more so our Father in heaven knows how to give good things to his children when they ask (Matt. 7:9-11). But He gives good things with the mind of a parent and not the according to the will of the child. That’s the part we struggle with.

This is why it is so vitally important that we as parents communicate these truths to our children. They will see in us the example or non-example of our heavenly Father. I just pray that I listened to my children enough when they were young so that they’ll innately know the sincerity of my love now. Whether or not they’ll believe me when they’re 17 fully depends on whether I was consistent, loving, and listening when they were 3.  For me, my pudding is sitting in front me sort of speak.  The proof is in the pudding as they say.  For whoever reads this, maybe you’re just starting out at parenting, and this will be a word of timely exhortation before it’s too late. All I can do now, is try to help my son make these connections and find his faith again putting aside wrong thinking that has brought him much pain. The fact is that God doesn’t walk away from us, or stop loving us.  He loved us when we were unlovable and far from Him (Rom. 5:8-11). He calls us by name and waits for us to come to Him by faith only to realize He was there all the time saying, “I love you; I see you, and I’ve been waiting for you to come to me”.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matt. 11:28-30

[its-all-good-in-theory]

The Mind of a Parent

Recently, one of my boys told me that when he was younger, he was praying for something very desperately, and that he prayed every morning and every evening.  He has now decided that God does not love him because God didn’t answer his prayer.  I’ve been thinking all week about how I can help him understand that God doesn’t always give us the answers to our prayers that we are looking for in ways that we desire. My son sees God as disconnected and unloving towards us because it is within His power to make all the bad things go away, yet He doesn’t always do that.  

Many years ago, I read the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, and they give great advice about listening to friends or relatives that try to transfer their hurt or angry feelings onto us and how we can respond by saying, “I hear you.” That allows them to know that we are listening and care enough to let them be heard, but we are not taking on their feelings ourselves or necessarily agreeing with them in how they feel.  I was thinking about how we as parents listen to our children when they are very young as well.  Sometimes it’s real work to genuinely listen to a three-year-old talk about anything! The connection in my mind is that God as our Father does listen to us, but may not give us what we think we want when we ask Him. Although He does say, “I hear you and I’m right beside you through this” (Heb. 2:18, Heb.13:5-6).

When our children are young, we hear them tell us of the child that was mean on the playground or the other toddler in the nursery who took their toy.  On and on life goes, as they come home with stories of a child at school that wasn’t kind or said something mean.  You and I know, that we cannot always step in and fix all those perceived wrongs.  We honestly cannot even explain why we won’t fix things in a way they will understand. We just don’t go to the other child and take the toy back even though it lies within our power to do so.  It occurred to me that this is the same as why God doesn’t make everything right or fix something that we see as wrong.  We just wouldn’t understand.  What He does say in the Bible, is that He will never leave us and that He loves us. He promises us that He hears our prayers.  He’s the parent saying, “I hear you; I see you, and I love you” (Rom.6:26-28, Ps.116:1-2).

Our children at toddler age are not able to understand that enduring a wrong, a slight, or an unkind word is part of what teaches us forgiveness, empathy, compassion, and leaving revenge in God’s hands. But when we say, “I hear you, I’m listening to you, and I love you”, I believe that we are preparing them to understand better how God answers prayer.  As adults we read His Word and can repeatedly hear God telling us how much He loves us, but if our kids aren’t in God’s Word each day, they aren’t hearing these words from Him for themselves. To them, He is silent in their world.  They are expecting Him to give them what they ask for without understanding that allowing difficulties and pain is a part of our growing process.  Just like if we don’t listen to our children talk to us, they will feel that we don’t love them; they can wrongly interpret that God doesn’t love them. They don’t hear Him or sense His presence standing beside them saying, “I see you; I love you, and I am with you always”. As a parent, it’s imperative that I teach and then remind my children that God does love them and listen to them, but He doesn’t often make everything better and fair even though it is within His power to do so. No different than why I’m not going to go punch a kid in the nose just because he said something mean to my kid. God is not going to explain to us why, because we couldn’t understand. But we do know that God is helping us grow and allowing us to suffer things that are hard to better prepare us for the future. God tells us in His Word how much He loves us, and that He works all things together for our good when we love Him and obey Him.

I’ve lived long enough to know that God does do miracles for His children when it fits into His plan for our lives. We have to teach our children to wait for it. His timing is not our timing because His ways and His thoughts are so much higher than ours. It’s really no different than as a parent why I won’t defend my toddler in the church nursery to get their toy back, but if someone was bullying them in fifth grade for instance, I’m going to talk with the teacher and principal and do something to protect my child. My knowledge as an adult is higher than my child’s, and I have understanding that they don’t to have as to when to intervene and when to let it go.

I’ve also lived long enough to have experienced some very bitter pills to swallow. I prayed for eight years for relief from a very abusive situation. I was changed by the experiences I suffered. I have an understanding now that I never would have had otherwise. As I went through those times, I can honestly say, I wasn’t really sure that God did love me either. But He taught me that while I suffered. It’s a mystery that one must experience for themselves. Today, I don’t second guess any more whether or not my heavenly Father cares for me. I know it absolutely. No one can experience healing unless they’ve been wounded. We can’t truly appreciate unconditional love unless we’ve experienced hate or indifference. How can we appreciate the light if there was no darkness? If God made us all to do whatever He wanted all the time, we would never know the depths of His love and sacrifice to make us whole after we sinned against Him. This fallen, corrupt world is the only environment in which we can be amazed at His grace freely given to evil and hateful people. But as a parent loves his child and would not give his child a stone if he wanted a piece of bread, much more so our Father in heaven knows how to give good things to his children when they ask (Matt. 7:9-11). But He gives good things with the mind of a parent and not the according to the will of the child. That’s the part we struggle with.

This is why it is so vitally important that we as parents communicate these truths to our children. They will see in us the example or non-example of our heavenly Father. I just pray that I listened to my children enough when they were young so that they’ll innately know the sincerity of my love now. Whether or not they’ll believe me when they’re 17 fully depends on whether I was consistent, loving, and listening when they were 3.  For me, my pudding is sitting in front me sort of speak.  The proof is in the pudding as they say.  For whoever reads this, maybe you’re just starting out at parenting, and this will be a word of timely exhortation before it’s too late. All I can do now, is try to help my son make these connections and find his faith again putting aside wrong thinking that has brought him much pain. The fact is that God doesn’t walk away from us, or stop loving us.  He loved us when we were unlovable and far from Him (Rom. 5:8-11). He calls us by name and waits for us to come to Him by faith only to realize He was there all the time saying, “I love you; I see you, and I’ve been waiting for you to come to me”.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matt. 11:28-30

[its-all-good-in-theory]

Life after 2020

So for many of us, this past year was our worst in many ways.  2020 was also an awesome year for me as well as being one of the most difficult of my life.  What I’m working on now is... how to go forward from here.  The image in my mind is a closet.  My life is like a closet or was I should say.  It was neatly and tightly organized to max capacity.  I like everything in its place and tucked in, hemmed up, buttoned tight, with no frayed edges in life. I like to step back and review my lists, plans, and goals and relish the productivity, the symmetry, and sheer magnitude of days, months, and years filled with memories. 

I used to think of myself as disciplined.  I have seven kids, lost 50 pounds after my last baby, finished my bachelor’s degree online last May, and we made a happily uneventful move across the country.  I packed and organized our entire lives to fit into a 53′ semi truck.  Everything made it here in one piece except for my mind.  Maybe I lost it along the way somewhere on that boring stretch of nowhere between Painesdale and Bruce Crossing.  If you’ve ever been there, you know what I mean.  What I did gain along the way was ten pounds that seemed to want to come along for the ride. 

Ever since covid changed our lives and everything that once existed was forced to a halt,  it’s like there’s some cosmic curse on my life��s “closet”.  The entire thing exploded onto the floor.  Each day, I attempt to put things back into my closet in a nice, neat orderly fashion, but as life would have it, nothing will go back into the closet.  I put things on a shelf, and they pop right back out all over the floor.  I feel as if I meander around our house each day making a path through my life’s junk kicking things aside wondering where to start or what to do next.  

When everything is all out of the closet you wonder how in the world did I ever accumulate this much junk?  What do I still have my graduation sweatshirt from high school for?  Or the outfit I bought while I was pregnant that I thought surely I would wear after the big day but never could.  In a very literal way, because we made a huge move, I got to revisit every piece of stuff I’ve collected and decide whether or not it would make it onto the truck.  Many hard decisions had to be made.  It was like a life reset.  Not only did covid change us, but everything in our lives changed forever with this move.  Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that I feel this way, but I’ve made many moves before.  Each time, I set up “shop” sort of speak and got on with life.  This time is different.

I still make grocery lists and to-do lists, but gone are the days of my five-year and ten-year plans, life dreams, and prioritized goals.  This moment by moment living is anything but ideal.  I feel like I’m complaining yet I truly don’t have anything to complain about.  Our whole family is all still healthy and whole.  We have made it financially through a very difficult year.  We have options before us and opportunities that many do not; so why do I still feel like I can’t get a routine back? I forcefully try to bring my life back into order with schedules but to no avail.  This is a new season of life for me in so many ways.  My children are growing up and some have moved out on their own.  This also brings a sense of grief I never could have imagined.  With two more standing at the precipice of life waiting to fly away, I anticipate with great trepidation how it will feel to have such a quiet house with only three children left. 

I keep thinking, there must be a reason that all this has happened.  What am I supposed to be learning?  How can best react to my life turned upside down?  For one, I’m trying to be very honest with myself and my family.  What are our priorities?  What have I been pouring my time into that was a waste of time?  If and when I can organize my life’s closet again, what will I put back on the shelves?  What will my schedules look like in the future?  I’m still not sure where I will work or what life will look like as we adjust to our new surroundings and make new friendships, but for now, life has me on my butt.  All I can do is start each day without a plan or a routine and take each thing as it comes.  That’s hard for a neat freak- OCD list maker like myself. 

These are just some thoughts and if there’s someone out there that feels like I do; you’re not alone!  I can say one thing:  there’s no shortage of surprises when life is so unplanned.  There are many things to be thankful for all around us even in a difficult season.  There are new friends I look forward to visiting with, but the ten pounds that came for a visit can really go home now.  They’ve overstayed their welcome.  :)  

Amy