Praying for future spouses, Voddie Baucham standards & the Quotidian Liturgy
Praying for Future Spouses
I have realized that the amount of time I pray for my three future sons-in-law and my future daughter-in-law sometimes supersedes the time I pray for my own children. When we are out and about and observe something, read about something, or have some foolishness happen in our own home, my initial response is often a silent prayer in my head - oh, Lord, let not my sons-in-law be captured by the pornographic culture we live in! Or Lord, I pray you will be guiding my daughter-in-law to love the home, her future children and my son. Or I pray that my 4 “additional” children will be doers of the Word and are right now being raised in homes that take worship seriously. Or I pray that they are learning habits right now on how to wisely handle technology and this digitized world we live in.
Or I will see something in one of my daughters and pray instinctively that her husband will rejoice in the wife of his youth and will lay down his life for her. Or I see something in my son and without thinking about it, I pray for my daughter-in-law’s heart, that she is learning how to be steadfast and patient. On and on the prayers come, and what is even more interesting is the ways in which those prayers - and the eye to the future - shapes my own understanding of my children right now.
What is perhaps most exhilarating is the idea that my husband and I been praying for these men and this woman for so many years now (17 and counting*) that I wonder if, when we meet, it will be as though we have known each other all these years. How do prayers connect us? I don’t know. But it is pure joy to pray for these people whom I don’t yet know but will be part of our family for many decades to come. With much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I have reconciled myself to the reality that my oldest girls’ childhoods are ending and that my relationship with them will be far more determined by their lives as married women rather than as my daughters and intimate bosom buddies.
Note: a few years ago I reminded my older daughters that they need to be praying for their future husbands every single day. On occasion, when their brother engages in some immature antics as younger brothers are prone to do, Madeleine and Sophia have been known to later pray at dinner - Lord, please help my future husband not be a doofus right now.
Ahem. :)
*I remember when Madeleine was a baby and suddenly it occurred to me that her future husband was already out there, toddling around in his own family with his own mother chasing after him. This floored me. There was someone out there who desperately needed my prayers as much as my own baby daughter did! Ever since then, that boy, who is now young man somewhere, has never been far from my thoughts.
Voddie Baucham Standards
Recently my husband and son went on a road trip to do some guy things, and Voddie Baucham went along for the ride. Chris had downloaded several sermons in advance, telling me it would be good for Voddie to yell at the two of them for a while as they traversed through the mountains of North Carolina (William is thankfully a fan of Voddie Baucham* and has seen him speak at a conference, and thus knows him as the enormous, bearded Jiu Jitsu pastor who says Amen or Ouch all the time). They listened to some no-holds-barred sermons about the standards that young men and boys ought to hold themselves to: it was mostly in relation to becoming ready for marriage, but the application is more widespread than that. William came home and announced that Voddie had told him he must become the 4 P’s: prophet, priest, provider, and protector. It was hard not to hide my smile. We have told him these things hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways around the kitchen table, but there is an added layer of effectiveness when Pastor Voddie delivers it in his inimitable way. My young son has to learn to cast foolishness aside and be ready to step into marriage when he can provide spiritually and materially for his bride - a feat that no boy can accomplish without fervent prayers, training, correction, and a fully engaged father. And this ability to provide is not, as the world would have you believe, linked to a certain dollar amount in the bank. Marriage has little to do with the savings balance and everything to do with the self-sacrificial attitude that will sustain you through decades of difficulty and disappointment. There is more to marriage than that - but goodness knows it’s easy to get through the times when things go your way, but a whole new level of depth, commitment and self-sacrifice is required when there is trouble or suffering.
To my fellow Eves who been known to battle frustration (aka womanly control) with the men/boys in your home: if you wish that someone would tell all the males in your household to get it together and rise to the level of godly manhood that the Bible calls them to, Voddie is your guy. If you wish that your daughters’ future husbands would be prodded to think from the earliest ages about what it means to be a true gentleman and leader, have your own sons listen/read Voddie, and pray for your future in-laws while you do it. Bonus: no nagging required!
*Please don’t send me notes saying that you once heard Voddie say one comment that can possibly be misinterpreted. I won’t hear of it.
Reading
This section is purely for the fellow bibliophiles who are always inquiring about the treasures currently on the nightstand.
Husband: Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford
Me: Martin Chuzzelwit by Charles Dickens
17-year-old daughter: Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
15-year-old daughter: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
13-year-old son: City of Orphans by Avi
9-year-old daughter: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Roald Dahl
Family (aka Daddy) Read-aloud: Watership Down by Richard Adams
Listening
The best 3 podcast episodes from this week:
Thinking in Public – The Human Stories Behind the Abortion Headlines
Theology Pugcast – Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
First Things – Arthur Brooks on Growing Old
Attending: Dry Brushing
As many of you know, I have been through many phases of a health crisis for the past year. Without rehashing every high, low, and plateau, paying attention to what my body feels has become critical for my daily and weekly survival. As frustrating as it is for me to not be fully well again, I am grateful that I have been able to resume a good chunk of my motherly activities. No frills around the edges, mind you - no late nights, plenty of time for sleep and naps, a willingness to stop what I’m doing and go lie down even in embarrassing and inconvenient situations – like a church service, a violin lesson, a family gathering - and just generally paying attention to what my body seems it can handle at any given point. So I am attending, as it were. One way I am doing that is via dry-brushing. Have you tried it? I have heard about it for several years, but it has never passed from the I Should Probably Do That List to my This is a Daily Habit. Until the last few months, that is, when I have finally nailed it to my morning health routine. You can find out more about it here. Dry brushing helps activate for your lymphatic system, which can be thought of as your personal trash man. For the past several years, my personal trash man has functioned more poorly and with a work ethic on par with a member of the Chicago teachers’ union, and thus regular assistance is needed. I have a few different dry brushes (it really does take some time to figure out which one feels right on the skin); I dry brush in the morning while I’m reciting my Bible memory work and getting ready for the day. It is woven in with what I am already doing and thus adds no additional time.
Cooking
Here is a “recipe” (more of a method) that I stumbled across last spring after the purchase of my first InstantPot, and we have been making this almost weekly ever since.
Black Beans and Rice
(or as we call them, purple worms due to their appearance when the lid is removed)
2 TBS olive oil
1 TBS minced garlic
1 diced onion
Add olive oil, garlic, and onion and set Instant Pot to Saute for 4 minutes. Pressure Release.
2 cups Basmati rice
2 cups dried black beans (rinsed, but we don’t soak them)
8 cups organic chicken stock or broth
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp Kosher salt
1 1/2 - 2 tsp oregano
Add rice, beans, broth and spices to IP. Stir. Pressure Cook for 24 minutes. When done, pressure release, which takes several minutes.
Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream and chips. (My kids eat this with corn chips, but I cannot eat anything except my revered Grain-Free Sea Salt Siete Chips. I could eat an entire bag and call it lunch. Yum.)
We eat the beans and rice fresh for lunch the first day - often on Monday or Tuesday - and keep these in the fridge for the rest of the week, and they are always gone by Friday.
Prior newsletter editions for my new readers:
Until next time,
Allison