To Spank or not to Spank

There have been two articles in the paper this week regarding parental discipline, specifically, spanking, one article 'for', the other 'agin'.
I must say that every time I read an article that heaps guilt on parents who choose to use disciplinary spanking, I cringe. These articles nearly always use the words 'hitting', ‘walloping', beating’ and ‘violence’ to get their point across and inflict the most guilt on parents.
But that’s only a part of my cringe. From recent media features on parental discipline we know that 4 out of 5 parents spank their children. Frankly I think the figure is higher. During a very interesting discussion on discipline in my grade 5 class a few years ago I asked my students how many of them had been spanked. Every hand went up.
 To be clear, 4 out of 5 parents spank, but if asked if they believe in it, (especially in public), 9 out of 10 will say no, obviously not wanting to appear a ‘hitter’, beater’ or ‘walloper’. Here is where the tragedy occurs.
CHILD: strong–willed, defiant, active, challenges every request, doesn’t respond to reason….. (ie. normal)
MOTHER: tender- hearted, sleep-deprived, exhausted, frustrated, depressed, alone most of the day
INCIDENT: (usually everyday, all day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year). Child disobeys, hits, bites, breaks things, runs away, answers back,
RESULT: tender-hearted mother who doesn’t believe in spanking (because everyone will call her a violent child-beater) finally snaps and DOES beat the screaming child because she is dangerously angry and utterly frustrated. The very violence she hates and wants to avoid has happened.
It shouldn’t have to be this way.
Our mothers and grandmothers  have been trying to tell us for years that spanking is a legitimate and useful tool for curbing the naturally occurring defiant behaviour in every child. And it works, for both the parent and the child, especially for the little child whose language and reasoning skills are quite undeveloped. It works when it is done calmly and deliberately with the child’s training at heart, not the parent’s need to vent frustration.
Whether you believe in spanking or not, please read these SPANKING BOUNDARIES….just in case

1. Never spank in anger
2. Never more than 2 spanks
3. Never spank above the waist
4. Ensure the child understands why s/he is being punished (willful defiance)
5. Always demonstrate love and reassurance when the dust settles
6. Spanking should end by 6 or 7yrs of age

Beauty for Sale? or...

The River of Culture has its own set of values that determines how we live. Coming down from the 60’s , when the ‘new morality’ became vogue (or the old immorality), young women have been  told that

            “their true source of power depends on maximizing their beauty and sex appeal and marketing it to compete for acceptance and popularity.”

            Anyone watching young teenage girls in their school or social environment would have to admit that this value has been sold and bought utterly. The saddest part of this state of affairs is that only 13% of girls are reasonably happy with their size and shape, and only 2% think they are beautiful. What  becomes of the other 85%?

In his book “Bringing Up Girls”, James Dobson makes the case that a great majority of girls are getting caught up with self-hatred and depression because they cannot compete in the beauty stakes.

This makes me mad. Who gets to say who is and who isn’t beautiful?

We should be asking ourselves the question “Who is profiting from the unhappiness of our girls?”

The answer is obvious with a little thought:-   anyone who has a beauty product to sell.

            Eg. cosmetic and hair, clothing, beauty treatment companies; gyms; magazines; diet programs; jewelers; and of course, advertisers.

It’s time we leveled the playing field for the sake of our girls, and ladies, it’s up to us to take the lead.

1Peter 3 clearly sets out the Biblical culture of true beauty and it’s free and available to all.

‘Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; ⁴ but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 

I have many very attractive women among my acquaintances. They are the sort of women you just love to be around and whose friendship you greatly value. They have the inner beauty that Peter speaks about, and it definitely shines out to the outside in a way that makes them, well…. ‘beautiful’. I might add, they are all shapes, sizes, ages and personalities.

If we want to ‘sell’ this inner beauty to our girls in such a way that they want it, we first of all have to spell it out clearly, and then we have to live it out consistently.

Here is my attempt to spell it out…..

Inner beauty looks like…

• Eyes that sparkle and look at other people with genuine interest
• Lips that readily smile (closely linked with point 1)
• Grooming that is careful, clean and  fresh
• Clothing that is modest yet modern and doesn’t scream ‘look at me’ or “I’m available’
• Posture that reflects confidence and self-respect
• Good health that comes from proper rest, diet and exercise
• Conversation that is Intelligent and interesting and others-focused. 

Let’s live it out : Inner Beauty is CAPTIVATING

The River of Culture

What are we teaching our daughters to protect them from today’s toxic culture?

In years gone by, the ‘river of culture’ used to be a gentle stream that carried our children along toward adulthood. Today it has become a raging torrent that carries everything downstream and threatens to drown unprepared young people. So says James Dobson in his latest book “Bringing Up Girls”.

The river of culture broke its banks in the 1960’s when I was a teenager. The catch cry of the day was “If it feels good, do it” and “ God is dead”. Decades later our society is reeling under the consequences of that revolution.

Two of the deadliest lies that Satan is feeding our daughters are:

• The true source of power for young girls depends on maximising their beauty and sex appeal and marketing it to compete for acceptance and popularity, and
• Sexual experience for girls is healthy and leads to empowerment.

Dobson claims that these two social mores of today have created a super highway to depression for our girls. Anyone with teenage daughters or working with girls in schools and churches knows that this claim is utterly and sadly true. I would like to talk a lot more about this depression and accompanying self-hatred.
I have my own (strong) opinions on the topics of beauty and early sexual experience. No doubt you do too and I would like to hear what they are.

So what are you teaching your daughters? How are you protecting themt from the toxic environment that they have to live in?

Miranda Devine's article in the Sunday Sun on July 10 is worth a read.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/parents-should-spy-on-their-teens-web-antics/story-e6frfhqf-1226091436707

Shattered Dreams?

Nothing stretches our faith like a shattered dream. The first and ever-present question on our mind is "does God really care about me and the desires of my heart”. The long-held dream seems to fade away as we begin to frustrated and fretful, and there is great temptation to either take matters into our own hands or slip into a second rate, low grade, meaningless Christian life.

One of my Bible heroes is Joseph, known as the dreamer. God gave him  an exciting dream as a 17 yr old boy. Soon after, he was sold by  his brothers, taken away from home, made a slave, falsely accused by a powerful woman, thrown into prison for 14 yrs…dreams don’t get much more shattered!!

It was the way Joseph behaved during those ordeals that makes him my hero . Through all of his experiences he kept trusting God and giving his best effort to every task set before him. He was a good slave, honest, hard working, helpful, kind, innovative and productive.

He had no idea why God was putting him through the Egyptian university of character building, or why he was ultimately placed in such a high position of authority under Pharaoh. But there WAS a plan being unfolded.

He just trusted and obeyed.

When God gives us a dream for our future, we should not get the idea that it is up to us how it is carried out. It is His plan, not ours. His timing may not be to our liking, but He has a purpose for every experience we go through. When I look back over my life I have to admit that I grew most during the darkest hours and the toughest struggles . Didn’t you?

Are your dreams shattered? I encourage you to put the broken pieces into the Father’s hands and remember that He is a good and faithful God who can be trusted to fulfill His promises.

Be patient!  

Maybe tomorrow….

Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Waiting for Dreams to Come True No.2

When a dream is from GOD, and it settles in our heart as a soul’s sincere desire, we hand it to the Keeper of Dreams for Him to fulfil at the right time and in the right way.
Then, we do two things which almost seem contradictory.

1. We wait, as though He will do all the answering of our prayers

2. We do what WE need to do to accomplish the dreams of our heart. Glenn Clark says “the answering of our prayers is a partnership affair. With each request is a corollary: we must be willing to meet God halfway”. eg.

If we want to be forgiven by someone, we must forgive all who have treated US unfairly
If we want to learn new skills, we must be prepared to study/practice/make mistakes/try again/persevere
If we want certain property, we must handle our finances with discipline and restraint.
If we want to be loved, we must be loving, to everyone.
One of our dreams as young parents was that our 3 children would follow in our faith, before the end of their High School years (well, you have to be specific!!). We could have wanted this with all our heart but if we didn’t consistently model an authentic, vibrant Christian life in front of our kids during those years we had no right to expect God to do His part. I’m not talking about sinless perfection day after day, as THAT sure didn’t happen, but if we believed the Bible holds the keys to “life that is truly life“ (!Tim 6:19), then there was to be no compromising it. When we did fail, (which was often!) we admitted it, sought forgiveness and tried to learn from our mistakes.

If you “delight yourselves in the Lord HE WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART. Commit you way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will do this” Psalm 37:4,5

Be patient. Don’t give up. Keep on ‘delighting.’ Keep on ‘committing‘. Keep on ‘praying‘. He means it.

Waiting for Dreams to Come True #1

8 dreams on a piece of paper. All good, honest, unselfish dreams, tested and given back to the

keeper of dreams. We believed they WOULD COME TRUE. Psalm 37:5 says so. But, when, and…

NOW WHAT?    Where did we go from here? Two things
First, we WAITED

Part of the ‘handing our dreams back to God’ involved giving God the right of using any avenue and any agency which He cares to use to bring your dreams into fulfillment, in His own way and in His own time”.

Some dreams may take many years to come true and the waiting time is a learning time. God uses it to teach us many things, like patience, gratitude, humility, endurance, and especially trust.
Too many people see God as some glorified Santa Claus, expecting Him to deliver the goods whenever they demand. Sometimes we need to be reminded just who is God, and who is the servant.

There are many temptations we can fall into when we get impatient with God to fulfill our

dreams. eg

• God is not interested in my life.
• I even doubt His word and  existence.
• He is not trustworthy
• He is too slow, so I will take matters into my own hands,
  
  Abraham fell into this trap, and produced Ishmael. Isaac was still born, as promised, but what a mess came out of impatient waiting.

One of our dreams took over 25 years to come true.
We wanted to have a home on a few acres in the country, room for kids to run, a horse, chooks etc. But the time wasn’t right:
1. Barry’s work was in the city, and the call there was still current;
2. The children’s education, both academic and spiritual, was located in the city;
3. Our finances were inadequate. Full-time motherhood meant a single income .

           The waiting wasn’t easy. I am not by nature a patient person. I dream it now, I want it now. Many MANY times over the waiting years I had to re-relinquish my dreams, giving them back to God again and again, reaffirming my trust in Him.

The waiting wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. We now have the few acres, AND we learned to trust God.

Testing the Dreams

There is a way of testing our dreams to prove whether they are truly our heart's desire, desires for which we have the right to pray. We hold them up to the light of Philipians 4, the six 'whatsoevers'.

 

1. are the things we desire true;  true to our nature; things we truly need for daily life, work, ministry ("give us this day our daily bread" etc)?

 

2. do we honestly desire them: are we absolutely sure that we do, not from spite, envy or pride or someone else's expectations?

 

3. are they just desires; do they take anything from another person; are we deserving of them in the eyes of God; have we earned the right to pray for them through toil, sacrifice and service?

 

4. are they pure; purity of heart comes from recognising every human soul as vauable and worthy of our respect; our dreams must never cause another person, anywhere,  to suffer.

 

5. are they lovely; (my favourite test by far)...quoting Clark

    " When we do a loving thing, beautifully, gracefully, harmoniously, what more can we ask? Pray then, for beautiful things, knowing that this praying for beauty is not vanity, pride, or selfishness. Is there any vanity in God when he gives us a beautiful sunset, flower or lake?

   We too have the right to make life for others sweeter and happier and more beautiful. We have the right to pray for greater beauty and happiness to shine from our faces, greater eloquence to clothe our speech, and a finer grace to govern our actions. ....pray that beauty and loveliness may enter every corner and phase of our lives."

6. are they of good report; this test relates to our outlook. If we believe that God hears and answers our prayers, especially those ‘dreams’ that have come from Him, we should expect a good report. Our attitude should always be one of expectant optimism.

This testing of our dreams takes time, but it’s a wonderful sieve to put them through.

How many are still on your list?

We had  7 or 8 on our first list.

The Keeper of Dreams

The Keeper of Dreams

Putting our dreams into words is no easy task, but it is the first step in realizing ‘dreams that come true.’

The second step is to test them to see if they are selfish worldy dreams (from the horn of ivory) or dreams that come from God (carved from horn). more later.

The third step, and the most important of all, is to give the dream entirely into the hands of God. If we believe that what we have written down is truly a soul’s sincere desire, then we have the right to pray for them.

However, knowing our human tendency to try and take control of EVERYTHING, including God, Glenn Clark reminds us:

            “the final and most difficult law in the kindergarten of prayer is giving the whole thing   ….even the process of achieving that dream - completely into the hands of the Father. And by “process of achieving’ I mean giving God the right of using any avenue and any agency which He cares to use to bring your dreams into fulfillment, in His own way and in His own time”.

             This is the heart of the matter. In our own situation, it actually took many years for some of our dreams to come true, but the beautiful thing was, that when they came about, they were far better than we had dreamed. But, if we had not sincerely handed them over to God in the first place, we would never have grown up, never have learned to trust our Heavenly Father, never learned the real value of prayer.  We would have been like a child wanting flowers but with seeds kept tightly balled up in her fists and not willing to plant them in the earth.

Look at your list again. Have you included everything that is truly a desire of the heart? Remember, that after the dreams have been tested, the final step is to give them away, back to the ‘giver’ and the ‘keeper of dreams’, where He can amend, change or correct them in any way He wishes.

This principle can seem relatively easy when it involves material things, or character issues.

But what if it involves the very life of a loved one, the salvation of a family member, the desire for a life’s partner or a job to support a family? Giving away such a dream can equate to ripping your heart out, like we’re trusting God for our very breath.

But once the great surrender has been made, God starts to work, and miracles happen.

Welcome to the real adventure of faith.

Day Dream Believer

I clearly remember the day I went from being a day dreamer to a ‘day dream believer’. I found a sheet of writing paper in my Bible on which I had written my dreams, many years before, and had forgotten all about. There were nine items on the paper. All but 2 had come true, and those came about later on.

How had this happened?

It had all begun10 years previously. Barry and I had read an old book on prayer called “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes” by Glenn Clark (1953). Some books can change you life…this one did for us.

There is a chapter in the book called “Dreams That Come True” and it challenged us to write down our dreams on paper. This is not as easy as it sounds.

As long as our dreams remain “out there” somewhere, they are relatively obscure, and safe. But the minute we take up a pen to write them down,  we make them real, and feel some sort of commitment to them. Worse still, they can taunt us with their seeming impossibility.

Another hindrance to this step for many people (us), is the belief that dreams are usually selfish or worldy, and therefore not to be entertained by serious Christ followers. Are we not called to die to all selfish desires??

The chapter begins :

“Two gates there are for dreams”, said Penelope to Odysseus after his 10 years’ of wandering had ended. “One made of horn and one of ivory. The dreams that pass through the carved ivory delude and bring us tales that turn to naught: those that come through polished horn accomplish real things whenever seen”.

Whenever a dream comes forth from the ivory gate that is carved and made by man, shaped and twisted by his wish-thinking, his prejudices and half-formed opinions, it always falls to the ground as worthless: but whenever it comes forth from the gate that God has made – that dream always comes true. I know because I have tried it”’

So have we.

There is a way of testing our dreams, whether they be of horn or ivory, and we made that journey over a period of several days.

But more of that next week. In the meantime, I challenge you to get a piece of paper and pen (pencil if you’re still feeling dubious!) and write out your dreams.

Whatever comes to mind, write it: things you’d like to do or become, things you’d like to have, places to go, events to happen

Write it.

Courageous Dreaming

I’m reading a great book at the moment called   “No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps”, by Paul Coughlin, a must-read for any parent trying to help a bullied child. The author has a lot to say about depression in children, as well as in the adults who parent them. Let me quote a bit:

“The lonely and depressed adult sees success as something outside her control. She does not see herself as an active agent in the quality of life. This is the thinking of learned helplessness, an unintended but tragic consequence endured by the person who had her life lived for her during her early years. (my emphasis)

Unfortunately, this kind of helplessness breeds fear rather than love of life, and the helpless parent goes on to raise a fearful and depressed child.

What a tragedy!  Life’s focus is on being safe, never adventurous.

What does our Heavenly Father say to us, His children. Well, to his first two kids he said, “Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over …every living creature..”  (Gen 1)

What a dream! What an adventure! Nothing safe or helpless here.

Paul Coughlin quotes:

“It’s in the setting of goals (dreams) and progress in working towards them, however mundane they are, that positive feelings are generated. From such everyday activity, resistance to depression is born”

It’s NEVER too late to start dreaming. It’s actually good for you, in more ways than one.

Dream On *2

Do you have a dream?
When I ask this question of people, I am often surprised to receive half-hearted replies:
"Nah! not really."
"I'm too busy just coping with today's problems."
"What's the point when they never come true?"

Where does the tendency of dreaming come from, nature or nurture?
Children are the greatest dreamers, that's why they jump of high platforms with teatowel capes, or sing in front of mirrors with hairbrush microphones....dreaming of what they might one day become. Giving children the freedom to dream is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child. Unfortunately, a few ill-chosen words can also quench the dreamer forever:

Are you a dreamer?
Are you the Joseph-type dreamer that was told by his family to 'get over it' and 'get real', or are you the Samuel-type dreamer that was told it just might be God at work.

Check out Psalm 37:5, and dream on.

Dream On

Welcome to my new site, which I would have liked to call Dream On ( if i could have tweeked the design gadgets better.)
The expression 'Dream On' is usually used in a derogatory manner, implying that the targeted person is unrealistic at best, simple-minded at worst.
If it was up to me, I'd include it in school curriculum and discipleship classes!.
So if you're a dreamer, stay tuned, as I'd like to fan the flame that may be trying to ignite in your heart.
Till next time, feel free to keep gazing into the distance or examing the stars while your mind free wheels.