Month: September 2021

Humbled and Hungry

Recently, Aaron and Gary had both been feeling puny.  In fact, they had each been tested for COVID.  Thankfully, both were negative. 

When a family member is sick, I slip into full-on caregiver mode – which means I usually hit the kitchen and start cooking.  I did this last Monday, making a huge pot of potato soup.  It was way more than the three of us needed but that’s the way I roll.

We sat down to eat that evening, where Aaron declared that he didn’t like potato soup and that he would not eat. 

“That’s fine,” I said.  “Suit yourself.”

Gary and I proceeded to eat.  Finally, realizing that I was not offering another option to him, Aaron begrudgingly agreed to try a small amount.  Three bowls later, he left our table full and happy.

“I liked the potato soup, Mom,” he told me later.  I just smiled and thanked him, not telling him that I knew he would because he had eaten it before and loved it.

Sometimes Aaron needs to see that I am not going to give in to what he wants.  I will allow him to get hungry in order for him to learn that the food I have made is good and that he needs to eat what is offered. 

How amazing it was that the passage I read in Deuteronomy 8 happened right after this object lesson!

Moses was reminding the Israelites about the reasons God had told them to obey Him and to remember all the ways He had led them. 

And then in verse three:

            “He humbled you, and let you be hungry…”

God let them be hungry.

Why?

So that He could feed them with the manna that He provided.  There was nothing they could do in the desert to feed themselves.  He gave them what they needed, and in their hunger…a hunger he allowed…He showed them a great truth.

“…that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” 

I didn’t enjoy seeing Aaron hungry.  It would have been easy for me to rush in and offer him something I knew he liked just so he would eat.  But if I did, then he would have missed an important lesson:  You eat what Mom has provided.

I can look at my life and see that there are many times when I don’t understand the way that God has led or the events that He has allowed. 

I ask why.  At the time, a decision seemed to be wise and right, but it led to situations that were hard.  Sometimes those ongoing situations are the very ones that roll around in my brain in the dark night hours.

But I have learned to push those circumstances aside and to look at God Who loves me without fail.  And I know…I KNOW…that the hard times – the times I am humbled and hungry…are by His design and His allowance.

God isn’t being mean when He allows me to experience hunger.  He knows that in my hunger I will be more aware of His provision, and I will learn that I do indeed live and eat and prosper only through His food that He provides.

His words to me are manna and life and strength.

And I will come to Him one day, hopefully, full of His Words that I have eaten, and I will thank Him for the hunger that brought me to the place of being satisfied with His goodness.

“How sweet are Your words to my taste!  Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”  (Psalm 119:103)

The Fruit of Forgetfulness

Aaron and I walked into our Dillon’s store one day this week.  He had happily agreed to my idea of getting him a Cheddar Pasta Salad for supper.  As we walked in the door, he quickly took off in the opposite direction from me. 

“Aaron,” I said to his back as he briskly walked away, “you need to come and find me when you’re done!”

I quickly got the salad.  No Aaron.

As I walked to the meat section, looking up each aisle…no Aaron.

I bought some meat.  No Aaron.

I looked up each aisle that I passed again.  No Aaron.

Finally, I went back to my original location. 

“MOM!!”

There he was, amid the flowers on one side and the boxed bakery treats on the other.  He had seen me.  He took off toward me in a run, holding two jars of peanuts, his face covered in a huge smile of relief.

“MOM!” he repeated.

“Don’t run, Aaron,” I admonished. 

But afraid of losing me again, he ran anyway.

“I thought you had left me!” he dramatically stated as he dumped his jars of peanuts in the cart. 

“I would never leave you,” I replied.  “You’re the one who left me.”

“But I thought you had gone, so I told a lady who works here to page you,” he excitedly answered.

“Oh, Aaron!  Did you really?!” I asked.

“YES!!” he said.  “I told her I couldn’t find my mom and I thought you had left and would she page you.”

I was actually pretty impressed that he had thought about paging me.  He saw the employee in self-checkout that he had spoken to.

“Is this your mom?” she asked.

“YES!!” Aaron told her.  “She didn’t leave me!”

We laughed…and there I stood, feeling like the mom who routinely abandons her son, being eyed by the customers who would never do such a thing.  😊

As I scanned the groceries, and kept reminding Aaron to calm down, I was also reminding him of all our past history.

“Aaron, have I ever, ever left you anywhere?” I asked him.

He said no, but…

“No, Aaron, just remember that I have never left you and I would never leave you,” I continued.

This past January I chose a word for the year.  I’ve never done that before but this year I felt impressed to choose the word “Remember” for my word of the year.

I’m reading and studying through the book of Deuteronomy.  Moses was preparing the children of Israel to enter the Promised Land.  It was a land of “milk and honey,” full of good ground and many resources.

But it was also full of danger from inhabitants who hated the God of Israel and who fully intended to kill all the Israelites. 

So, there were the weary travelers who had just spent 40 years wandering through the desert, and God wanted them to conquer this land.

“Really, God?” they questioned.  “And just how are we supposed to do THAT?!”

And Moses said, “REMEMBER!!”

“…you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well REMEMBER what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.”  (Deut. 7:18)

How easy it is for us to forget God when we are surrounded by the stresses and bad news in our lives! 

Or we don’t really forget God, but we forget all the many ways that He has shown Himself faithful to us over the years.

Sometimes we simply forget WHO God is. 

And when we do that, we focus on our situations and not on God.

This quote jumped out at me this week and planted itself firmly in my heart:

            “FEAR IS THE FRUIT OF FORGETFULNESS.”  (Raymond Brown)

Over and over, Moses told Israel to remember all the works of God and all the ways He had led them.  And the only fear they were to have?

“You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him…”  (Deut. 6:13)

This fear means to have reverential trust in God. 

There is plenty to fear today in our personal lives; in the lives of our families; in our nation and in our world.

I don’t know about you, but I have had – even just this week – several opportunities to practice fearing (trusting) God instead of fearing my circumstances.

You see, trust and a lack of fear does not involve understanding my circumstances.

Trust and a lack of fear involves knowing and understanding God.

There is so much I don’t understand today.

But I DO know and understand this:

“Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God Who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”  (Deut. 7:9)

I affirmed to Aaron that I would never leave him.

And may I never forget that God affirms to me the same.

My Body, My Choice…and Aaron

This past week, the Supreme Court voted not to block Texas’ heartbeat bill.  This, in effect, has made abortion in Texas illegal after the first heartbeat of the baby in the womb is heard…usually around the 6th week of pregnancy.

Against the backdrop of yelling protestors –

I was looking at my own backdrop at home, which consisted of all Aaron’s bedding after his seizures earlier Friday morning.

And dear Aaron recovering from those seizures as he slept on the couch.

My mother’s heart was drawn to Aaron in his struggles.

But my mother’s heart was also drawn to all the many babies who have not had the chance to live, no matter how difficult their lives may have been.

There is a choice that is seldom addressed when most people talk about “choice” as it is defined today.

It’s the choice that Joshua talked about when Israel was going into the land that God had given them.  He told Israel to choose that day whom they would serve – the one true God, or one of the false gods worshipped by the peoples in the land around them.

Either way, they would choose a deity to worship.  They would worship God, or they would worship a non-god…a pagan god. 

“Joshua calls Israel to ‘serve Yahweh’ (Joshua 24:14).  But if Israel will not serve Yahweh, they must at least serve some god(s).  He presses Israel to the wall; they must come down somewhere.  If not Yahweh, the real historical God, then they must choose either the ancestral Mesopotamian gods or the contemporary Amorite ones.  The conservatives who were fond of tradition, of what had stood the test of time, who yearned for the ‘faith of our fathers’, might vote for Mesopotamia.  The liberals with their yen for relevance, for being in step with the times, might prefer to identify (as an act of goodwill) with the current social milieu and enter into dialogue and worship with the Amorites.  But you must choose; if not Yahweh, then take your pick from ‘these dunghill deities’ (Matthew Henry).”   (Dale Ralph Davis)

Do you see the issue here? 

Do you see the issue for our culture today?

My choice!

My choice which god I will serve.

For in making the choice to reject Jehovah God, you ARE making a choice to serve whatever pagan god fits your lifestyle.

We all serve and worship someone or something.

My choice to worship God will then dictate my other choices in life.

My choices FOR life.

For no matter how many silly arguments are made condoning abortion, we all know that something inside that woman is alive and growing.

And if nothing else, modern technology has shown us that what is growing in her womb is a human baby with a functioning heart at only several weeks old. 

Psalm 139 tells us that God has woven that baby together in his mother’s womb.  She is fearfully – reverently – and wonderfully made by God Himself!

So how do I explain our Aaron, born with special needs? 

I can’t.

But I can explain that as for me and Gary, we have chosen to serve the Lord. 

With all my body and soul and heart, I have chosen to trust almighty God to make the right decisions for me and for my son.

My body is not mine.

My choice is not mine.

I belong to God and His choice is all that matters.

And because I know Him and trust Him, I know that our Aaron whom he created is made just the way that God allowed and designed.

I walk in peace.  I don’t need all the answers to do that.

I only need to choose…GOD!

Photo taken by Karlea Tanner

What Aaron Shares

Recently, my husband and I went to an NHRA race in Topeka.  Our son, Andrew, works for one of the teams.  It’s fun to go to the races but it means even more to us to get to spend some time with Andrew. 

“MOM!!” Aaron said to me the day before we left, “take this state quarter to Andrew!”

You see, Aaron collects state quarters.  He keeps every state quarter that he finds and stashes them away in a tin box in his desk drawer.  He loves his state quarters!  So, to offer one to someone else is indeed a gift from his heart.  He sent one to his sister for her birthday in June, and now wanted us to take one to his brother.

The quarter he chose was dingy, but to Aaron it was a gift of gold.

Then to top it off, he brought me another gift to give Andrew.  He chose this gift from his new bag of bubble gum, bought just a few days earlier. 

On our first night in Topeka, as we waited on our dinner, I gave Andrew his special gifts from Aaron.  Such a sweet moment, and the look on Andrew’s face was priceless.

Aaron loves to share…to give things to people. 

Sometimes when he and I are watching a show at night, and he’s snacking on nuts or something else, I’ll suddenly have a piece of whatever he’s eating land on my lap.  He throws me pieces of his food like I’m an animal at the zoo that he’s feeding!  😊 😊

Let me share with you some of Aaron’s sharing with us.  I think your heart will be as touched as ours is.

Aaron laid these on my leg one day.  It was better than having them thrown at me! 

Another time, I found these on the coaster where he knows I put my drink at night.

And he left two of his very special rocks on my pillow one night.

Distance is no deterrent to Aaron.  He wanted to share some of his new Jolly Ranchers with Andrea and Kyle in Texas, and with Andrew in Indiana.  We bagged and boxed them up, and in the mail they went.  The postage cost more than the whole bag of candy, yet Aaron’s joy was well worth the money.

But Aaron shares more than just items like candy and quarters and rocks. 

Aaron shares huge smiles.

He shares his amazing discoveries.

Aaron shares joy in the simplest things.

Thanks for the picture, Karlea!

Aaron also shares words and actions and attitudes that can aggravate and anger us.  It’s all a part of the intricate way that his brain is wired. 

It’s up to me and to Gary to keep instructing Aaron…keep loving Aaron…and keep our emotions in check during the rough times.

We don’t always do it well or with grace.

But every day is a new day.

Every day, God’s mercies are new.

Every day, we all have some hard times. 

Every day, we have opportunities to focus on the blessings.

And every day is full of new discoveries and adventures for our son who is still, in so many ways, a child.  💙💙