An Open Letter to My Daddy

Yep, even at 34 I still think of you as "Daddy". I'm pretty sure that I call you "Dad" to your face, but in my head I revert to a six year old. The six year old Daddy's girl who wanted to follow you around.

I'm not sure I've ever really communicated it well, but I'm pretty sure I am who I am today because of you. I mean, because of God of course, but because of God using you to awaken in me a desire for Him.

You were always a springboard for me. Someone I could come to with spiritual questions and we would just sit in your office, you in your chair and me on that plaid couch, and just talk. You knew something was wrong with me when I would avoid that couch.

You never held me back, spiritually. Never treated me like a kid. When I was unsatisfied with our youth group Sunday school classes you always let me sit in on your adult one. Sometimes it was even an adult men's class, but you never once told me I didn't belong there. I wanted to learn and you wanted me to learn.

I watched your hunger for knowledge about the Bible and about other religions and followed along when you taught all those classes. The 12 year old sitting in the adult class on Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, abortion.....but you never treated me like I was too young. Like it didn't matter to me yet, you just let me learn.

You taught me to not take myself too seriously. Sometimes by pointing out my zits in front of my friends....but hey.


Sophomore year of college you were the last piece of the puzzle to me feeling free to break off a 7 year relationship that I knew was not where the Lord wanted me. I knew that you and Mom loved him like a son and was holding on because I was so worried about disappointing you. Then out of the blue one weekend when I was home (ironing my dress for church, I even remember where i was standing) you asked me if I was happy. I didn't even tell the truth, I said yes, but then you said I didn't have to stay with him just to make everyone else happy. I had never even told you I was struggling with this, you just knew.

When I would bring John home for weekends in college you would sit and talk to him the way you always talked to me. The two of you would debate and talk for hours. I would have to remind you that your daughter was home too.....

You have supported me every step of the way. Through years of mission work in Canada, a dozen moves, a hard job, a hard fall, new jobs and tons of adventure.

In our ministry position (and in the youth ministry before this) we are deep in the personal lives of young people and I can tell you that what I have with you is VERY rare. It is practically unheard of. Dysfunction is the norm. You are a blessing. A blessing that I have always thought of as normal, but you are far from normal. (and I mean that in a good way, ha!)


Thank you is too small. I love you is too over-said. How about - we are striving to be like you. I want my kids to sit on the couch and talk to John and I the way I talked to you. I want my kids to feel supported by us the way we have always felt supported by you and Mom.

I want to be you when I grow up.

June Happenings at the Schaffner Sanitarium

Well, it's official. The crazy summer is here. In writing everything we have to do in June/July/August on my calendar my heart rate began to increase, as did my breathing. That was last week, and in thinking through this blog post I decided it would be fun to take a picture of our June calendar just for funnsies and post it. Problem.

I lost my calendar.

Yeah, that can't be good for an over packed summer. Whatev.

This summer we have youth camps to attend (3 of them...), weddings to celebrate, family to visit, all the regular stuff, only jacked up on caffeine and pumped up with steroids. At least, that's how I view our calendar. But hey, life would be boring without tons of activity, right? If you agree with that statement please visit my previous post here.

The June fun began with a visit from the Rhodes family of Minneapolis, MN. Or, as my good friend Jessica calls it "Sexy Minnesota". Anyway... They were passing through town and called to see if we could have lunch and of course we said HECK YES! Ben was a great friend of mine in college and I had not had a good Ben-conversation since a friends wedding years ago so it was due! His wife, who I KICK myself for not getting to know in college, is AMAZING and now considering going on a BCM mission trip to Haiti in December - so very productive! It was a fun afternoon of George's burgers, two four year old boys at one end of the table crashing hot wheels cars (very loudly, sorry George's customers....) and two six year old girls at the other end coloring, giggling, and singing Christmas songs together (?) while the four of us caught up in the middle. Don't you love those people you can NOT see for 10 years and then you get together and it feels like last week? Yeah.

And onto another matter....I will home school forever simply to avoid the chaos of getting kids ready to go somewhere early every morning. How do you people DO THAT? I mean, without losing your mind? This is what VBS has taught me. The first two days of VBS I was keeping my sis-in-laws four children. Do the math - me getting six kids ready to all be somewhere at 9 AM. Chaos = Amy losing her sanity! The kids were all great, it's just ALOT of children in a not very big house adds up to a very high noise level......

Our house is infested with ants. We have had an exterminator, I've used ant poison, ant spray, Lysol (very effective...) and tried homemade remedies. They are fighters. My two year old niece saw one crawling on the table and said "Aunt Amy, there's an ant", so my natural reply was "Squish it with your thumb, Emmy, and say 'Die, die'", so i turned around to see her do exactly what I suggested. Only with a squished face and venom in her voice. I'm such a good babysitter.

I've been reading alot more lately (see my post here, to know why...) and in doing so have ventured outside the Focus on the Family-approved reading list. I generally stay in the Christian realm of reading, not necessarily on purpose, just because I have such a backlog of things I have meant to get around to. But, my previously mentioned friend Jessica suggested The Pioneer Woman's book "Black heels to Tractor Wheels" some time ago and I finally dived it. I'm a bit obsessed now. I love her. And I may make John start wearing wranglers just because her book has made me have a new appreciation for cowboys. Now I'm a regular creeper on her blog as well, I want to be Ree when I grow up.

Next up - a camp next week, a wedding in the weekend (Sadie gets to be a flower girl!), a trip home to cuddle my beautiful niece, Ruthie and then back here to get ready for....another camp!

Have to say, I'm thankful that God gives me a good laugh every now and then to help me keep perspective. Like this morning when I checked my mail and found this.

(front of postcard, black box added by me. I have had stalkers before.....)


(back of card.....?)

This made me giggle, alot. I'm sure if any neighbors were watching this I confirmed their suspicions about me....

I think I need to reread my own posts about slowing down....

Does evil have any place in our lives?

I've been puzzling through some things lately that I think I need some help figuring out. Would you like to go on a quest with me? Trying to "discern what is pleasing to the Lord," together? (Eph. 5:10)

As a devoted follower of Christ, should evil have any place in my life?

That's the question.

Now before you pop off with the "of course not, that's an easy question", let me continue....

I am drawn to crime television. I have NO idea why this is, but it is. I have watched Law & Order since fifth grade (when it started) and have watched all Law & Order's that have subsequently branched off from it. My favorite is SVU. Yeah, Sexual Victims Unit. I think "Criminal Minds" is amazingly interesting. "Lie to Me" has been my most recent delving into the mind of the criminal. I could go on.

When we were in our floundering stage as a family, living with Mother-in-law and having no idea where we were headed next, I avoided the thoughts in my head during naptime by DVRing all Law & Order SVU's and watching several in a row while my kids were sleeping. This went on for atleast a month and the personality change in me was startling. I saw the ugly come out, and I knew that it was because I was not only avoiding God during my only quiet time of the day, but filling my head with evil. The really vile kind of evil. When I felt God telling me this I quit SVU cold turkey.

But then John and I started watching "Criminal Minds" in bed before we went to sleep at night. From vile to...what's worse than vile....twisted? Why do we fill our minds with these things and call them "entertainment"?? Thankfully it didn't take as long for me to realize this was not a good idea for me. Sleep became bad dreams, and waking became me looking at everyone around me as a potential pedophile/serial killer/wacko.

In talking about this a few weeks ago with a group of college students as we were just sitting around chatting one of the guys started talking about one of the "Criminal Minds" he had watched a few days ago. The story was awful. I pointed out to him that he had just made the statement "he raped her and then killed her and cut her head off " with the same inflections he would have said "I had a burger for lunch today". I haven't seen him since then.

But that's the issue, right? We are so desensitized to evil now that we watch it as entertainment. But my question is, how far do we as Christians go with this? I will say that I have felt God leading me away from "entertainment" that does nothing but fill my mind with evil. I am not questioning YOUR choices, I am stating that God has shown me what MINE should be.

But maybe I am questioning YOUR choices. Maybe I'm questioning all of ours.

We teach our kids the 10 commandments, but most of the television/movies we watch will eventually break either "Thou shalt not murder" or "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and we don't even blink. We watch "Desperate Housewives" as entertainment, but if our neighbor was doing the same thing we would be horrified and praying for her soul. Where is the disconnect? Would I ever go sit with popcorn and watch through my neighbor's window and be entertained? Of course not, that is not only illegal but sounds ridiculous. But what is the difference?

He's smart and sneaky, that Satan. In our homes, no matter what we do, if we have a TV he has a way in. (I state this as someone who has a TV, TVs are not inherently bad...) It's not the television, it's our sin nature that craves these things and chooses to fill our minds with things that do not edify us.

So, I've pretty much stopped watching television. I have found that it does not help me in the "making the best use of my time, because the days are evil"(Eph. 515) category. I have attempted to find shows that I can watch without my Spirit being "checked" so that I have something to watch that will keep me on my treadclimber for 45 minutes. I think I'm just going to have to switch to podcasts, because so far on Netflix that show does not exist.

So, in stopping watching TV I've been reading more. I love to read. But you have to be just as choosy with your reading selections as you do with your television selections. Case in point: Ted Dekker. I have always loved Ted Dekker. His Green/Red/Black/White series is one of my favorites. In the last two weeks I have read two of his books "The Bride Collector" and "The Priest's Graveyard". Both interesting novels. Both Good vs. evil and Good prevails. But here's the thing, the whole book filled my mind with evil until the end where good prevailed. That's my question for you - is that okay? I mean, yes, God won in the end and it was a story of the love of God prevailing over the evil of Satan - but for 150 pages I was "entertained" by the evil.

Does this jive with Psalm 34:14 "Turn away from evil", or Psalm 101:3 "I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless", or Ephesians 5:11-12 "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret."

I'm working through this and how it plays out in my life. I don't want to become one of those weirdo Christian fanatics who get rid of their televisions and only reads things endorsed by Focus on the Family. Especially because we home school. People already think that's weird, so we would just put the last nail in the coffin.

*Disclaimer* if this describes you, I'm sorry. I was joking....mostly.

What do you think? I'm looking for honest feedback. Help me figure this out! Is Amish the only way? Can I finish the season of "Flash Forward" on the treadclimber without feeling like I need to ask forgiveness? What do you think about all of this? How do you discern what is good/bad for your family? Comments, please!

Things I've Decided.

(meet Rhino, the newest member of the Schaffner family)

If I believed in reincarnation I would want to come back as a puppy.

Extreme cuteness, extreme laziness, all aspects of life taken care of by someone else so I can do nothing but eat, sleep and play. hmmm.

But I think if I were reincarnated I would probably have the same personality, just in puppy-form, so there would be no eat, sleep, play.....only OCD tendencies, anxiety and guilt feelings for all the napping. I would pee on the floor and then feel like a terrible puppy for knowing I should be better at not peeing on the floor. hmmm, I'll stick with the humanness. For now.

*disclaimer* - I do not believe in reincarnation...

Oh, and I've decided to become a Super Hero. One who fights evil with coffee and only works during the daylight hours because she needs her sleep to not be unpleasant. No one wants an unpleasant Super Hero.

Today I've decided to cut out white flour, milk in my coffee, and books by Ted Dekker.

Tonight I am determined to go to bed at a decent hour even though I've become thoroughly engrossed in "The Pioneer Woman".

And I will NOT finish the bag of cookies that is in the pantry calling to me right now. I can hear them. Audibly.

And as with my last nonsensical posting, I will leave you with a picture that means nothing about anything.




Cheers.

Smaller, Simpler, Slower.

These three little words are written in the front of my Bible. Our Sunday school teacher said them once during class and my soul reached out and grabbed them and in bold ink I made them permanent in my Bible. I long for this life, a life characterized by these three words.

Funny how my ACTUAL life so often seems so far from them. In reality the bold print should say
"Large, Complicated, and Neck-breaking fast".
But it doesn't have to be.

That's the kicker for me, knowing that even if those words characterize my outer life, my inner world, my soul could still be small, simple and slow. It's called "peace" and I give it up all the time to whomever seems to be asking for it.

Yesterday morning during my time with the Lord, in the quiet of the morning, I realized my whole life could be like the quiet of the morning. I don't have to close my Bible, take a deep breath and then rush into the day. I don't have to let the pace of others determine my own pace, mood, or attitude.

I'm wondering if one of the reasons for moving us was for God to make my world smaller. Was I giving away too much of my time to the neighborhood kids after school and neglecting my own family life? Sometimes. Would that have changed if we had not forcibly moved? One look in the little redhead kid's eyes next door would have said "no". I couldn't turn them down or turn them away. I was neglecting parenting, homeschooling, and my house for "ministry". Not that neighborhood ministry is a bad thing, I just have to learn to balance. My FIRST ministry is always right under my nose. I am a wife and mother and that will always be my first mission field.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. This word has ALWAYS reached out to me. I honestly don't know what it is about it that touches me, but it does. How often do I complicate things that should be simple? How often does my lack of organization make life harder when I could have routines that make everything run so smoothly? Simple. I want my life to be simple. What a strange word that we don't see very often anymore. It's such a mystery to figure out how our world's can be HUGE and mission-minded and our hearts open to the world while still living a simple homelife that keeps us close enough to our children to teach them about the Lord.

Anyone who knows me well knows that if it were left to me my life would be extremely slow. My personality leans toward hermitage. I can be in my house for days at a time and never realize I haven't left. It is such a good thing that God put me together with John, who is not slow in ANY way. And Sadie also keeps me on my toes in this area, she is constantly wanting to be DOING DOING DOING. But even with never leaving the four walls of your home your life can be too fast-paced. There are days when I never sit down. I will DO all day long and feel guilty if I sit and then kick myself when I lay in bed at night with my knees aching because I should have taken a break. I should have taken a breath and relaxed and enjoyed life. Life is not just about dishes and laundry, we are actually supposed to ENJOY it. I don't know about you, but I do not enjoy dishes.

I've decided to make this summer intentional. I'm not sure intentionally "what" yet, but I'm praying through that. It just occurred to me yesterday morning that I have June, July and August to be intentional about something in my own life that needs work. Most of the other months of the year the energy is directed towards homeschooling, BCM, Church, etc. - but Summer slows everything down. We will still be doing some school-related work around here, but for the most part it is three months open to possibility. I, of course, have MANY ideas about what this could be, but I am praying for HIS idea of what needs intention in my life. When I figure it out I'm sure I will let you know. But for now I am praying, reading, attempting a smaller, simpler, slower life. I've also decided to have a theme song for this! I love this song and it always encourages me, so I've chosen it as my Summer 2011 theme song. I know, no sane 34 year old chooses theme songs for their life. Oh well.
Change in the Making - Addison Road.


So, what about you? Is there any particular thing you are working on this Summer? Any advice on my small, simple, and slow life? I would love to hear!