Michelle Wegner

Bringing Up Girls

 

I’ve been anxiously anticipating James Dobson’s book about Bringing Up Girls that is coming out this spring.  Between now and then I’ll be doing some thinking and sharing every now and then what it’s like to bring up girls “these days.”  My blogging buddy Shelly Wildman is a brilliant writer who has girls a few steps ahead of mine wrote an article about this the other day.  Go read her post,  then come back and check out the 5 best and the 5 hardest things about bringing up girls I have found to be true so far.

The Hard Stuff:

1. The drama.  Oh, the drama.  Every day, every where I look, some dramatic event is playing out before my eyes.
2. The competition. Looks, skills, personality, it is in every area of their little lives.
3. Books.  Books are awesome.  So many good ones, way too many bad ones.  It gets so hard to sort through them all and decide which is which.
4. TV commercials.  We guard our girls from watching smutty TV shows that degrade women.  Commercials do that in between shows we let them watch.
5. Clothes, and the money they would LIKE to spend on them. 

The Great Stuff:

1. Clothes.  I love seeing them develop their own fashion sense.
2. Their feelings and emotions.  Good and bad, their emotions on their sleeve or hidden, I love the processes of their emotions.
3. Creativity.  I love to watch them interact with one another and come up with creative dances, plays, and stories.
4. Chatter.  Their chitty-chatty-ness is always going on somewhere in our house. 
5. Friendships.  With their sisters or their friends, their friendships are deep and full of life and love.

Those are my observations for now.  How about you?  If you have girls (or know one)  what is the hardest part of raising them?  What’s the best?

Memorabilia Monday

 

How would we ever have guessed that all but one of the people in this photo would end up in the same town after college?  I am so very grateful for these friends and many years of ever changing hair.

Not About Us

Just today Isabelle and I were driving down the road and the road workers were tearing up the road.  “What a mess!”  I said to her.  Without skipping a beat Belle said to me, “I think God told them to do that so they can make our world more beautiful.”

Dumbfounded by her wisdom, I replied, “You are right Belle.  We are so fortunate to live in a place that has clean streets.  Some of the streets in India weren’t so clean, were they?

B:  Nope.  But some were.  What if we had cows here like they do in India?

Me: That would sure be funny, wouldn’t it?  Remember how the cows walked around in the roads in India?

B: That was very funny.  Why did the people let the cows do that?

Me: Because they respect the cows very much, and some people even think they are God.

B: Does Prema think cows are God?

Me: Nope.  She and Raj tell all the people that Jesus is God, and the cows aren’t.  That’s why we went to India, because so many people don’t know about Jesus yet.

B: Yep.  When we went to India it wasn’t our vacation.  We were doing an important job.  It wasn’t a vacation, was it Mom?

Me:  Nope

B:  It wasn’t peace and quiet.  We go to Florida when our family needs peace and quiet.  We went to India to help the people.  It wasn’t for us.

Me:  Yep.

I love that Belle caught on to this perspective at age 5.  I hope she remembers that “It’s not about us” for a long time to come

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Writing For…

Mel’s World!  Check out Melissa Mashburn’s site today.  I wrote a post for her about all the this and that of what ministry life is for me right now.  You’ll like Mel.  She’s positve and upbeat and loves Jesus, her husband, and family with everything in her.  Thanks Mel, for giving me the chance to write for you!

Fearless-Rob&Michelle’s Love Story

I wrote about my baby growing up yesterday. In some ways it makes me sad; But then, Maddie will do something so creative and funny, I realize there is no way I would want her to stay little forever. She has so much in that little brain of hers. This little video she put together for us tonight while we were tucking in the other two cherubs left me and Rob a blubbering mess. Enjoy.

 

1+1=22

Our baby turned 11 a few weeks ago.  11.  E-l-e-v-e-n.  Half way to 22.  11 years ago she was born.  11 years from now she will be t-w-e-n-t-y-t-w-0.  Rob and I have both had a few “oh my word” moments lately, one of them the other night while trick-or-treating.

How many more trick-or-treats do we have with Maddie?  It’s always been all of us.  All of our friends and their kids are like a little pack and we all go together.  But, it will not always be.  Someday she’ll want to get married or something and I doubt her husband will want to trick-or-treat with us. 

Tucking Whitney in bed tonight, snuggling her up under her covers, brushing her hair out of her face, it hit me again.  How many more tucks do I have?  How much longer will she long for me to talk and talk to her while she is laying there with her sleepy smile?

And then yesterday watching Isabelle brush her own hair,and then proceed to put her own barrette in.  Same thing.  I got all teary.  I asked her to promise me she would always stay 5.  She rolled her eyes at me and said, “But Mom, I am almost to 10!”  I think she thought I had officially lost it when I got all teared up watching her brush her hair.

How many moments do we have left? 

I’m counting mine more carefully lately.

Memorabilia Monday

I think I was about 13 when I got married.  Oh my word do we look young.

Fun Friends

Will we remember 5 years from now that it was 45 degrees and very windy Halloween 09?  I doubt it.  But, we will remember our fun friends and these fabulous alien cupcakes, eating monster toes, and chili to warm us up.

Halloween's Past

   

             

No Benches At My Park

I just got done reading The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton.    I loved this book.  The friendships that the women were able to make starting on a park bench on Wednesday mornings while their kids played were truly remarkable.  The book is set in the late 1960’s which offers a lot of perspective on how they were able to formulate these friendships.

They saw each other through births, miscarriages, deaths, infidelities, cancer…all the hardships we as women are faced with regularly.  What tied these women together was their love for one another and their love for writing.  I really enjoyed the book, but have some thoughts about it that have been bubbling around in my head.  Before I spew my guts out, you have to promise not to feel sorry for me, judge me, or try to be my best friend.  Deal?  OK.  Here goes:

The reason I am cynical about this book is that I just don’t think these types of friendships are possible anymore without a ton of work and effort. Things have changed, and part of the problem is that we are living in a very transient society. People come and people go in and out of our lives on a regular basis, with not many feeling settled in their homes or communities.  We are either coming or going with no deep roots immersing us into a place for very long.

  We have sealed up ourselves in our neat little houses in our neat little neighborhoods and close the door so no one ever comes in and no one ever goes out.  There is one park in my community where I take the girls to play.   There aren’t any benches.  A lot of the moms sit in their cars on their cell phones while they watch their kids play.

When Belle and I play outside by our house on a school/work day, you can hear our voices echo in our street.  It is so quiet, you can even hear the echo of the crickets chirping.  I am the only mom on my block that stays home during the day, so there is literally no one around to spark a friendship with, let alone even have a conversation with.  When the other moms on the block get home from working hard all day, they are tired and want to rest awhile before they have to do all the regular mom duties no one else did while they were working. 

I don’t have a relative or sibling that lives close enough that I can just drop my kids off so I can go run an important errand, or just have a few hours to myself.  I have to pay a babysitter almost every single time.  I can’t go to church mid-week because all my babysitters are at church, and the mom’s in my network of friends are too tired from long days to take on 3 more kids.

I am not alone in all of this, I know.  I don’t know many women who have it all figured out. The whole women/friendship thing has always baffled me.  I just don’t see how women have the time or energy to pour into lifelong, deep, solid friendships.  I think times have changed, and it is much harder to make friendships than it was 30 years ago.  It’s not impossible, just a lot harder.

Critical Care

This is me my junior year in high school.  I sat with Tonia every day at lunch, and shared a locker with her for 4 years.  The memory of her laughter and smile still warm my heart. Our lives were so very different, but we loved each other a lot and stuck it out through some very hard times.

Her life was hard.  She suffered more than any high school girl should.  Her home life was full of sadness and joy like anyone’s, but for her, a lot more sadness.

I gave my life to Jesus wholeheartedly my Freshman year of high school.  I have the funniest memory of walking into my school counselors office the day we were supposed to pick up our schedules, and I saw Tonia sitting there looking small, but spunky.  I didn’t know her, but the friendship that started in that chance meeting in our school counselors office lasted all 4 years of the drama that goes with high school, and beyond.  Tonia even turned my hair green once in a bleach blonde turned ash blonde incident.  It’s one of my best high school memories.

We’ve kept a sort of loose touch over the years, her life going in one direction, mine in another.

There are few people on the planet I have loved as dearly as this girl.  I think she knows it, I hope she knows it.  I tried to tell her again and again of the love of Jesus waiting for her to receive.  I tried to tell her in my high school way of how dedicated I was to seeing her find her purpose in life and the depths of my love and care for her.  I don’t think she ever really knew.  I hope she did.  I hope she does now.

I heard tragic news about my friend this week.  She was driving a car that was involved in an accident that killed her passenger.  All the newspapers and I can find say, “she is in critical care”.  I’m trying all kinds of ways to get to her, to let her know I still lover her.  I still care, that Jesus still has a purpose for her.  Pray for my friend today.  She really needs it.

Grandfather Clocks

This past weekend at GCC, Jason Miller was speaking about distractions when he used his Mom and Dad’s Grandfather clock as an illustration for something that used to drive him crazy growing up.  My Dad is a professional clock guy, so his story made me laugh. 

Imagine your Dad being a Grandfather Clock repair man, and how many clocks a Grandfather Clock repair man would have around his house.    One time my brother Joel and I counted the clocks around our house and stopped at around 30 or so.  Grandfather clocks are the sound of home to me.  My dad wrote this fun fact on his blog awhile back:                           

My business is repairing or setting up grandfather clocks.
I tune the chimes,listen carefully for bad notes and making the corrections as needed.
All grandfather clocks play Westminster chimes,some play 3 chimes.
The are reasons for all the chimes,some are religious,some are from church bells and some are taken from children's nursery rimes.
Westminster chimes are the most popular,made famous by Big Ben in London.
However the chimes were first set into the tower at University Church, St. Mary's the Great, in Cambridge, England.
The actual words are:

"Lord, through this hour,
Be Thou our guide
So,by thy power
No foot shall slide"

The music was Handels symphony,"I Know That My Redeemer Liveth'.The words and music were arranged by William Crotch in 1793.
Even for the non religious people who have clocks in their homes,they are hearing a prayer every quarter hour.
I like that and find it fun to explain it to people.

So, next time a you hear a chiming clock or church bell, take it as a call to prayer.

By the way Dad, my clock is broken…help?

 

Who’s Gonna Help The Pastor’s Wife?

Here’s a sneak peak into my world.  Pastor’s wives are weird people.  Mark Driscoll did a good job of talking about it.  If you love me, watch this video.  If you want to know me better, watch this video.  He hit it spot on.

Death by Ministry part 10 - Mark Driscoll

I am SO blessed!! | MySpace Video

Our Graduate

 

 

Pray Craig Home

In recent days, you may have seen a story about Craig Weisweaver in the local media. His son Brian and daughter-in-law Tammy attend GCC and also serve through Son City Kids in Monroe Circle. They invited their Dad Craig to start coming earlier this year. Brian said , “He started attending GCC earlier this year with my wife and I. He hadn't been to church in quite some time prior to attending GCC and believe it or not, he started hitting up all four services (back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday). He felt very comfortable at GCC and loved you guys.”   A couple months ago, Craig joined the Son City Kids team and started serving too.

Craig was visiting his daughter in Japan, when he suddenly fell ill from an unknown virus. He was at first treated at an Air Base in Japan, where his son-in-law is a Navy officer. However, his condition continued to worsen and he suffered kidney and intestinal failure. The air base facility, which is the equivalent of an urgent care center, is not equipped to treat Craig's condition and recommended a major hospital.

Craig does not have health insurance and is not eligible for Medicaid until 2010. In Japan, no hospital will treat him without payment up front. Craig’s condition is treatable if we can get him home to a specialist here in the US. The challenge of getting Craig home has become a nightmare. He’s too sick to take a commercial flight and a private Med-evac flight for costs upward of $150,000.

Brian and Tammy have been diligently working with both, the Cleveland clinic that has access to transport planes, as well as, US Rep Joe Donnelly who is reaching out to the Pentagon on his behalf. They are hoping, at a minimum, to get him moved to another base that has a standard hospital care.

Please pray for Craig, for his health, his healing, and his transportation home. Please pray for Brian and Tammy through this ordeal. As you can imagine, this is a logistical nightmare with their Dad’s life hanging in the balance.

Brian said , “I believe in the power of prayer. Please ask everyone to ask their network to pray.”

In addition, a fund has been set up at Lake City Bank where donations can be made for Craig’s flight home.

All Is Well Indeed

                                                             

I love when I feel the peace of God on the back of my neck

When I know in my soul that all is well, all is well, all is well

I love when I look to the tops of the trees and see Heaven meeting Earth,

Glory of fall touching our eyes with Heaven’s brilliance

I love when I look to the sea and see wisps of sea flicking up in the distance met by horizons care

Heaven meeting Earth

I love when I see my girl dancing and twirling and swirling hands to the sky,

Glory of God touching her eyes and her face

The glory of God around me. His presence with me

All is Well. All is well indeed

Where The Wild Things Are: REVIEW

We went to see Where the Wild Things Are this morning as a family.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  All I can say is that our family awaited this movies’ release with baited breath.  From the first time we saw the first trailer, we were sold.  From the sound track, to the brilliance and creativity of the trailer alone, we could not wait to see this movie.

Max is a boy in his tween years, stuck somewhere between kid and teenager, confused about his emotions, and sad that no one in his world shares his fun sense of adventure.  He is crushed at the slightest disappointment, yet vividly aware of life and adventure.  I saw my Whitney in him over and over again.

Max is so angry with his Mom one night that he runs from her into the woods, finds a ship by a river and sails to another world.  In this new world he meets monsters who are selfish and angry just like him, but also loving and kind just like him.  He tries to create a world with them that is perfect and just how he wants it.  Max even convinces the Wild Things that he is a king with magic powers.  Things slowly started to crumble around him, and they figure out that he is not who he says he is.  Even though Max had lots of fun with the Wild Things, he decides it’s time to go home.

Whitney was sad because everyone didn’t have the chance to make up before the movie ended.  Carol and Max had a fight, and Max had to leave the Wild Things and go back home to his Mom.  There is a feeling of longing at the end, but I thought this was very healthy.  It was a very un-American movie, in that everyone wasn’t happy in the end.  I heard about a study once that said the #1 thing American parents wanted for their kids was to be happy.

I am under the belief and opinion that happiness is a wonderful by-product of right living, but happiness is not always a guarantee.  In real life there is suffering and sadness.  In real life, friends don’t always make up.  In real life, we don’t always get to do things the way we want them to, have the homes we want, the families we want, or the circumstances we want.

Real life is living through disappointment together.  Real life is navigating uncharted waters with your family, riding it out together, while sometimes it seems the whole world around you wants you to fail and fall apart.

Max goes home in the end to his Mom who truly loves him.  In my opinion, the movie is about finding happiness in your circumstances, not because of them.  I loved this movie. 

Rob had an interesting take on the movie.  Here’s his few words about it:

I thought it was brilliant. One of my all time favorite kid movies. I thought the screenwriters brought a depth to the characters that was surprising for a short children's story. The cinematography was breathtaking at points. The soundtrack was so fresh and carried the spirit of wildness that is the heart of the movie. The kid who played Max WAS ... Max. It never felt like he was acting...amazing. Each of the monsters represent a different part of Max’s personalities/emotions or his older sister. I think one was his missing Father. His interactions with them took me back to those years where childhood was ending and adult hood beginning. As a parent of Tweens, I could see my girls on screen too. I thought the movie was profound. We chatted with another family who saw it at the same time as us...they hated it. The movie is bittersweet because it's about the end of childhood and the challenge of losing your innocence through loss/pain. I think they were expecting a fun kids movie with goofy monsters. Our youngest Belle, who is five, got lost half way through, but there was enough happening visually to pull her back in. The older girls really enjoyed it. We had a great talk afterwards about what each monster represented. I could see Maddie, my 11yr old, wheels turning. She loves to write and dug the symbolism. I think she related to the emotional journey Max was on. Freud would have loved this movie. LOL

 

The Swine Flew Over My House

   And It’s not been fun.

  The lack of content on this here blog can be blamed on the sickness that has overtaken this family.  So far I have been only sorta sick for 10 days or so, which I’m not sure is worse than being really sick for 3 days.  Maddie and Whit were hit the hardest with it, and I haven’t seen them so sick, ever, except when they were little and sick with the chicken pox.  I did feel sorry for them, but after about day 5 having sick kids home, I was about to resort to drastic measures.  I didn’t.  I just ate a lot of chocolate and drank a lot of coffee.  Don’t judge.  It worked for me.

Hope your family is staying healthy! I’m going to take a long nap and not wake up till Monday.  My blog is taking a nap too.  

Book Review Day

  Kabul 24 is the story of the capture and imprisonment of eight Western aid workers in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

For three months in 2001, the desperate plight of aid workers kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan captured the attention of the world. With the growing specter of U.S. retaliation for 9/11, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden attempted to use their Western hostages as bargaining tools. What the captors did not count on was coming face-to-face with the enduring faith of people who know their only hope was in Christ.

Kabul 24 revisits their grueling interrogations, their sham trials before the Taliban Supreme Court, their peril during the bombing of Kabul, and the crushing sense that the world had abandoned them. It reveals not only the eight Westerners’ 105 days in captivity but also the gauntlet endured by their 16 Muslim coworkers who, after being taken to the notorious Pulicharki Prison, were beaten and tortured, having been accused by the Taliban of converting to Christianity.

This book was an intriguing insiders perspective of what goes on inside a Taliban jail.  My new favorite show is Locked Up Abroad on NatGeo.  Most of the people on that show end up locked up in horrific prisons abroad because of bad choices and decisions they made.  Unlike some of those people, the 8 aid workers, and 16 Afghan’s who worked for the aid agency were locked up for doing right.  They made their homes among the poor and desperate people of Afghanistan, bringing them hope, education, medicine, and the love of Jesus.

I was impressed with this book because of the vivid details of what life was like for the 8 aid workers “locked up” in a horrific place at a terrible time when bombs were falling all around them.  The prisoners were not portrayed as saints in the book, but regular people who were able to hold on to one another, and on to Jesus during the most perilous days of their lives. It was a great read, and definitely worth anyone’s time to read. 

Anyone want to borrow my copy?  Just let me know.  I’d love to share.

You can order the book here.

Maddie's Fabulous Fashionista Party

   

         

Can you tell Maddie had an amazing party?  Her friends are great.  They have lots of energy, but they really are great kids.  Maddie wanted a fashion party, so who else could we call to help other than Kathy Friend?  She is a fashion/wardrobe consultant, and my girls idolize her (in a good way) for her expertise in fashion, but most of all because of her kindness to them. 

Kathy talked to the girls about the importance of looking and smelling nice.  She talked about the fact that whether you like it or not, people will treat you differently based on the way you look or don't look.  She challenged them to think about fashion in a way that is modest, yet snappy.  She had the girls go through piles of fashion magazines and cut out pictures that captured true beauty.  They cut out pictures that showed friendship, happiness, work ethics, and lots of other good stuff. 

The party was a huge success.  I am not sure who will do Belle's parties for her when she is 11, because by the end of the party Rob and I were completely wiped out.

This was really one of the most fun parties we have ever done for the girls.  Everyone felt included, learned something, and had lots of fun. 

What's the best party you've ever had or given for someone?