i want to be wilder

I WANT TO BE WILDER: Part 4: Putting Off A Hard Thing

by oh amanda on July 19, 2010

When I first began this series I really thought it was going to be about making my kids (and myself) learn to DO more. I had plans to share with you how we started a garden, how I was teaching Lydia to sew (or something like it), how my kids were going to do more chores than I’d ever done in my life and how we were going to buck the American dream of coasting through life.

As I began this journey I had no idea that God would work on the INNER parts of my heart instead of just the OUTER workings of my life. I may not be able to share online exactly what’s going on in there. It has to do with my parenting and my marriage. But right now I’m still working out the “wilder” part of it. Maybe when I figure out what’s going on I can share it with you to encourage and remind you what is possible when God gets involved in your life.

As I looked through my notes this week for the rest of this series, I honestly felt like I didn’t have much more to share. The things I wanted to say were suddenly not as important as what is going on in my heart. But, one passage in Farmer Boy stuck out to me as something I really think you’ll want to hear.

It was threshing time and Almanzo Wilder was helping his father spread wheat on the floor of the barn. Almanzo asks his father why he didn’t hire the threshing machine which could thresh a crop of grain in just a few days…

“That’s a lazy man’s way to thresh,” Father said. “Haste makes waste, but a lazy man’d rather get his work done fast than do it himself. That machine chews up the straw till it’s not fit to feed stock, and it scatters grain around and wastes it.

“All it saves is time, son. And what good is time, with nothing to do? You want to sit and twiddle your thumbs, all these stormy winter days?”

“No!” said Almanzo. He had enough of that on Sundays.

Then they begin to beat the grains of wheat out of their husks by hand. Then separate them. This took them all winter.

This one is tough. “What good is time, with nothing to do?” Wow. I can think of a lot of things I can do besides separate wheat by hand. How about reading? Playing online? Watching movies? Going to the mall? Taking a vacation? Sleeping? The goal of work is to have FREE TIME, right?

Not according to Mr. Wilder. He saw work as the reason to live. And isn’t that really what God tells us in the Bible? When God created Adam he gave Adam the garden to TAKE CARE OF. When Adam and Eve sinned the curse to Adam was that he would have to work “by the sweat of your brow”. And I think the curse here is not on Adam being forced to work but that Adam’s work would be cursed. Not how God intended fulfilling and fruitful work to be.

Not to mention the strict warnings against idleness in 2 Thessalonians 3. Or the praise of a woman who is never idle in Proverbs 31. As I sit in front of my computer and listen to my washing machine, look at my full-of-clean-dishes dish washer while my children play with talking, flashing games, I feel absolutely IDLE.

I don’t want the goal of my life to have NOTHING TO DO. I want to DO. I want to work hard at things like keeping my home clean, cooking good meals and making sure my kids play outside. But I also want to work hard at my marriage, my relationships and parenting. I don’t want to be idle at any level. Think about what it means to idle in your car—you’re not going anywhere. Just wasting gas.

So, what does this mean practically? How does this work in your life? In mine? Maybe you don’t sit down on the couch to watch TV as soon as the kids are in bed. Maybe you read a book or join a study that will help you be a better wife (even if you don’t really want to). Maybe you choose to close down Tweetdeck during the day so you can focus on your kids. In fact, these ARE the things I’ve had to do to keep my life from being idle.

And the sad part? I didn’t know I was idling. I thought I was moving on pretty good. I didn’t know I was putting off a hard thing. I was content to idle and twiddle my thumbs.

What about you? Do you want to sit and twiddle your thumbs all these stormy winter days?

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See the whole I WANT TO BE WILDER series:

Introduction
Part 1: Believing the Best About Your Kids
Part 2: Serving Others
Part 3: The Choice of Freedom
Part 4: Putting Off A Hard Thing

wagon wheel photo by greeney d mantis

{ 11 comments }

I Want to Be Wilder: Part 3: The Choice of Freedom

by oh amanda on July 12, 2010

in i want to be wilder

laura ingalls wilder

Do you remember in my I Want To Be Wilder intro I told you, “I can see day by day and week by week that I’m feeling new ‘hard things’ come into my life. I’m sensing the ability and desire to do things that from my previous mindset would be WILD.” I had no idea how true this was going to be.

In these past few weeks I have gone careening through several areas of my life (all progressively more important than the last) where I am suddenly seeing the need for things to change. I’m feeling like I’m on the edge of something so big and different that it is making me terrified.

I told you I felt like a sleeping person that was just waking up…and a person who had been underwater my whole life. Well, it’s happening in more ways than one. It’s more than how I school my kids or feed them. It’s more than the ability to serve my family. I didn’t realize I was praying the prayer for God to open me up and strip me down. I didn’t know I was asking God to make the dark places bright as day. But he has. And it is hurting.

I am at a crossroads. I have two choices: to go back to my normal underwater life OR to stand up, do some hard things and experience a new freedom.

The last chapter of Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder ends with a big decision for Almanzo. A neighbor, Mr. Paddock has asked him to apprentice as a wheelwright. Mr. and Mrs. Wilder talk about the possibility with Almanzo over dinner:

“Well, son, you think bout it,” said Father. “I want you should make up your own mind. With Paddock, you’d have an easy life, in some ways. You wouldn’t be out in all kinds of weather. Cold winter nights, you could lie snug, in bed and not worry about young stock freezing. Rain or shine, wind or snow you’d be under shelter. You’d be shut up, inside walls. Likely you’d always have plenty to eat and wear and money in the bank.”…

“But there’s the other side, too, Almanzo. You’d have to depend on other folks, son, in town. Everything you got, you’d get from other folks.

A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you’re a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You’ll be free and independent, son, on a farm.”

This passage struck me so hard when I first read it. Our society sees freedom as the ability to sit at a computer and order luxuries that are delivered to our doorsteps. We see freedom as the LEAST amount of work possible for the BIGGEST payoff.

Mr. Wilder saw real work—hard work—as freedom. Raising every single bit of anything he would need from the earth. He saw freedom in doing for himself.

There are so many parallels I feel in my own life. I don’t work for anything. My children don’t do anything that makes a difference in their actual living. This doesn’t make us free. We are bound by our affluence, our wealth and our tender feet.

But there is something more I’m seeing here. If I want real freedom in my life–freedom to experience all the fullness of my marriage, my motherhood, my friendships, my relationship with God, then I HAVE TO WORK AT IT.

I have been married for 12 years. I can’t let my marriage slide by with memories of college, traditions and past conversations. I can’t let my parenting skills be founded in something I read in a book before I was a parent. I can’t let my relationship with God stay the same as it was when I gave him my life in 1st grade!

Oh, I hope you’re hearing me! I’ve just realized if I want the life I’ve always wanted I AM GOING TO HAVE TO WORK FOR IT. And I’m going have to work harder than I’ve ever imagined. I am going to have to give up my pride, lay down my desires and pick up my cross! Somehow I was surprised that when I asked God to show me the hard things He wants me to do and to give me the freedom I’ve always wanted, that I was going to have to get ready for the answer! I’m shocked that I’m even shocked by this. I didn’t realize that I had been stuffing my heart with the immediate and NOT the important!

If you want freedom, you have a choice: you can live in town and be safe inside four walls or you can run to the farm and work from dawn to dusk to raise everything you wear, everything you eat and everything that keeps you warm.

I want to make the choice that Almanzo made. He chose to be a Farmer Boy. And I want to be that free. I want to be the girl that has true freedom, freedom that is won by the sweat of my brow, the breaking of my heart and the shattering of my pride.

I want to be wilder.

:: :: ::

See the whole I WANT TO BE WILDER series:

Introduction
Part 1: Believing the Best About Your Kids
Part 2: Serving Others
Part 3: The Choice of Freedom
Part 4: Putting Off A Hard Thing

wagon wheel photo by greeney d mantis

{ 12 comments }

I Want To Be Wilder Part 2: Serving Others

by oh amanda on June 21, 2010

in i want to be wilder

laura ingalls wilder

I randomly saw a facebook status a few weeks ago about a Little House on the Prairie Musical. I had never heard of this and given my new obsession with the books, I knew I had to take Lydia! So, Saturday night my mom, Lydia and I went to the Little House on the Prairie Musical at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta. The show didn’t even start until 8pm and that was after a week of VBS and Performing Arts Camp. It was a very long day but a sweet and special Mother-Daughter outing for the three of us.

I just saw Broadway’s Mary Poppins which was the most sparkling breath-taking thing you’ve ever seen. So, I wasn’t sure if a non-musical musical would be that great but I loved it. It captured the feel of the Ingalls family, the beauty of their life, the prairie, the music, the costumes and the story. I loved every second of it and Lydia was wide-eyed the whole time, too.

FW:New Message
Lydia wearing her new Laura Ingalls bonnet at the Little House Musical at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta!

The play focused on the stories of the last four Little House books. The main thrust of the story and Laura’s character is about how she’s a “wild child” until Mary becomes blind as a result of Scarlet Fever. Laura immediately sets her heart and mind on being the “older sister” and she is determined to “be good” and to help Mary succeed at everything–including going to a college for the blind. It was beautiful to see their sister relationship on the stage.

It is a theme taken straight from the books. In Little Town on the Prairie, the Ingalls family has been silently hoping that they could afford to send Mary to college. Suddenly, Laura is offered a job of sewing shirts for the men in town. She spends six weeks in town with a woman she doesn’t know sewing shirts all day long. She earns $9 in those six weeks. And she is overjoyed because she has made $9 for Mary’s school.

She hands Ma her money and Ma says, “I feel bad taking all of it Laura. You should keep some of it for yourself.” To which Laura replies, “Why? I don’t need anything.” She is literally perplexed that Ma would consider not taking all her money. Laura sat in a high backed chair and sewed men’s shirts for hours a day so that her older sister could go to college. And she didn’t expect even ONE penny in return.

Yes, Laura loved Mary. Yes, the Ingalls had a tight-knit family. But there was even more–it is a selflessness and a sense of the important. This is something we have not cultiavted in our culture—or in our families.

When I was a little girl, I used to listen to Psalty. He’s an old-school Christian kids’ singer who had numerous albums about a great big blue singing songbook. Anyway, one of my favorite albums he had was called “Sing-sational Servants”. My brother and I could quote every line of that entire CD…er, tape. Years later when Les and I first got married, we found that tape at an old bookstore and bought it. We listened to it for laughs and memories—but I started crying when I heard it. The lyrics of one of my favorite songs went like this:

Make me a servant, humble and meek. Lord, let me lift up those who are weak. And may the prayer of my heart always be: Make me a servant today.

I pictured a myself as a little girl singing that song and not even realizing that I was asking God to make me a servant. Being a servant is a lens that is over my life. My dad has always been the example of a great servant. It’s how our family has tried to behave. It’s something that I’ve tried to instill in my children. And to model.

But when I read this part about Laura being surprised by Ma’s question about keeping her own money, I felt jealous. I want to be THAT kind of servant. Not just the servant of a stay-at-home mom who does the dishes and makes dinner before her husband comes home. I don’t want to be the mom who “gives up her life” to stay home with the kids.

I want to be a WILD servant. One that gives time, energy and money freely. One that doesn’t view time, energy or money as MINE.

This is so hard for me. I talk about needing “me” time. I get irritated when my husband doesn’t contribute to our household they way I think he should. I feel my temper rising when my kids do something that changes my pre-conceived schedule for the day. Everything in my life is focused on me and on how I want things to be.

This is especially prevalent in my marriage. I want to serve and honor my husband. But if he doesn’t do the same, then I change my mind and withhold that honor from him. My servant attitude is always dependent on if he serves me first! It’s the you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours-mentality. And it is COMPLETELY wrong.

Mark 10: 43-45 says this, “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If I want to be great (have others love and honor me) then I must be a servant! If I want to be first (respected and important) then I must be a slave to all. A SLAVE! Slaves don’t work because they know they are going to get a paycheck at the end of the day. They just work. Slaves work knowing that even if they do their best they may still get whipped and be starved at the end of the day. Slaves just serve.

Can I be a slave to my children? Not an attached coddling parent. But a parent willing to put down my computer, my book and my clean house to discipline my kids, to teach them godliness and to bring the best out in them?

Can I be a slave to my husband? To do what he wants first? To expect NOTHING in return from him? To give all of myself to him (my emotions, my love, my body, my time and my desires) with no hidden agenda?

Can I be a slave to God? To serve and honor Him without asking for anything in return? Without thinking about what my church or friends might expect?

I so want to be that wild. I want to be seen as someone who serves. Ugh! It’s hard to even write this and not be selfish. I struggle every day trying to find that attitude of servanthood. Practically speaking, I’ve been working on taking the words “me time” and “alone time” out of my vocabulary. I’ve been trying to say “yes” to my husband…if it’s about his schedule, his leadership or his wishes. I’ve been stopping what I want to do to get into my kids’ world—through discipline, play and interaction.

I don’t know if this sounds wild to you or not. But it is to me. As a capable strong woman, it’s hard to give myself away. It’s hard to expect nothing in return. It’s hard to focus on the IMPORTANT and not the IMMEDIATE. I hope you don’t hear me saying I am doing this all the time. Or that it’s a romantic “i love my kids and husband so much” attitude. It’s about changing my attitude to one that gives and desires nothing in return.

It hurts to even think about being that wild.

:: :: ::

See the whole of the I WANT TO BE WILDER series:

Introduction
Part 1: Believing the Best About Your Kids
Part 2: Serving Others
Part 3: The Choice of Freedom
Part 4: Putting Off A Hard Thing

wagon wheel photo by greeney d mantis

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I WANT TO BE WILDER: Part 1: Believing the Best About Our Kids

June 14, 2010 i want to be wilder

Thank you so much for all the great response to my first I Want to Be Wilder post. I’m so glad to see it struck a nerve—or rather that it revealed so many kindred spirits. Please keep commenting, I’d love for this to be a spot of like-minded people trying to figure it out together! [...]

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I WANT TO BE WILDER: An Intro

June 7, 2010 i want to be wilder

When I was a little girl, I read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved every second of the stories and was excited to read them to Lydia. We read the first two books last year and after one of you suggested the audio versions read by Cherry Jones (that’s President Taylor [...]

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