This morning was glorious and right now, mid-afternoon, I’m still in its glow. I rose when God told me, got dressed and worked out like He said, and talked to Him on my bike and in the sunshine on my front porch. This is my time with Him, my mornings of vacation, a phrase He gave me when I lamented my life no longer being my own.
When I was a young mother, still trying to find my way, the Lord spoke this concept to me so motherhood wouldn’t overwhelm me. As a career woman making a good wage I was used to being able to vacation whenever I was in the mood. With a husband but no children I still was able to freely get away. My baby changed that and I resented that. But one morning on a family trip for a friend’s wedding, I slipped away to a garden on a local college campus, and among the pond teeming with fish, the potpourri of plants, flowers and grass and the warm breeze that felt like it would forever last, I felt free; I was at peace. I felt like I was on vacation. This morning, away from the baby and daily grind, I was alone with God, Him supplying me rest, helping me be my very best, for that day. Then He told me this vacation wasn’t just for this day, but for all my days. These would be my mornings of vacation.
Busy women, particularly those recovering from strong black womanhood, have to have mornings of vacation. Your time doesn’t have to be in the day and maybe your retreat won’t be in some home corner space, but you must create your mornings of vacation whatever the time of day. Decompress, by yourself, everyday so you can stay in the place where God needs you to be. We have to be good for Kingdom work on our jobs, in our homes, and when we’re alone needing to hear from God what He wants to work out in us.
Schedule what would be your day, everyday, to have your mornings of vacation. We all need a getaway, even if for just a few moments in our own home.
My One Thousand Gifts List
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The quiet morning
The crisp air
Direction for friendship
Another view of God’s longsuffering with us
Getting a blog post while gardening
Juicing
Completing Joshua’s science prroject
Flynn cooking chicken
Completing an interview for a magazine
Going Beyond receiving Your First Year of Motherhood
When you Google him 74 news articles appear. He has been on all the major news stations, including CNN, and on radio shows across the country and Canada. The Detroit mayor has called him. He’s gotten tickets to Detroit Lions and Tigers games. Detroit policemen and firefighters, U.S. Navy officers, University of Michigan basketball stars, U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke, and Detroit City Councilwoman Joanne Watson all came by to see him. He’s gotten shirts, hats, hugs, balloons, calls, cards, letters, volunteers, donations from across the country and from two other continents (Africa and Europe), a hosts of “likes” and “shares” across the Internet, and a bunch of offers too many to name. I am talking about the “Lemonade Boy”; I am talking about my 9-year-old son Joshua Smith.
On the Google search my Joshua comes in just behind Cleveland Orchestra flutist Joshua Smith and NBA player Joshua Smith. He’s right there at the top with folks who have spent a lifetime crafting their careers. He’s there from a single idea that came to him a few months ago. One reporter asked, “So it was just a spark of an idea?” I responded, “Some people call it a spark. I call it inspiration from the Holy Spirit that he got as a result of prayer.” The true genesis of his idea has gotten little, if any, press at all, but I share with you how it happened and what God wants to happen to all of us when we commit our ways to Him.
You may have heard that Joshua was “troubled” when he heard on the radio that there was a crisis in our beloved Detroit. He thought the city would no longer exist “like Pluto” is no longer a planet. He asked me “What can we do?” I instructed him to pray. So every night after hearing about the city’s financial troubles—with jobs and services being cut, Joshua committed to praying for Detroit. Before this time, Joshua had come to me concerned that “I don’t know how to hear from God.” I told him to continue to seek God and God will speak to him. When Joshua said, “I want to sell lemonade to help the City of Detroit,” my husband and I agreed to support his vision. But we, too, thought it was a spark of an idea. We now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Joshua’s idea to raise money to donate to our city to cut the grass and pick up trash in our neighborhood parks was God’s idea.
How else do you explain his story going viral in a day and eventually reaching three continents?
How else do you explain the accolades, including a college scholarship for a fourth grader?
How else do you explain his getting tickets to see two ball games he had been begging us to see but we couldn’t afford?
How else do you explain a boy selling refreshments inspiring the world?
Because of God a suicidal woman from Laredo, TX says, “I can now go on.”
Because of God a hopeless Detroit woman says, “You give me hope.”
Because of God a volunteer group, whose founder is from a tony suburb, cut the grass at the parks.
Because of God a little boy from a dim city shined his light throughout the world.
God takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27): a lunch of two fish and five loaves to feed more than 5,000 and unlearned fishermen and crooks as His starting crew to spread the Gospel are two of the greatest examples of God’s supernatural power (Matthew 14:14-21; Acts 4:13; Matthew 10:1-31).
He tells us to be willing, and He is able to use us: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (Proverbs 3:5-7).
Through us the world is blessed and this allows God to get the glory: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
We don’t discount the human accolades; we just put them in their proper place: under the sovereignty and grace of God. And for that we are most grateful.
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Clear notes for my “Power of Motherhood” message
Adjustment of my schedule so I didn’t have to travel in polar directions
Going to Bible study
Good Friday service
Brother Abdu Murray for giving a thought-provoking Good Friday message
Discipleship fellowship at the play “Favored”
Being able to support Chevelle by purchasing tickets to see Joseph in the play “Favored”
Sweet fellowship with God where He gave MORE direction for the parenting column
Grocery shopping for Flynn so he could sleep in
A beautiful Spring in the backyard with the boys
I love this woman. My husband and boys do, too. We don’t know what we would do without her. Four years ago she started as my babysitter, but she is now a daughter, big sister, grace grower, an integral and intimate part of my family. She is the appendage I didn’t know was missing and sorely needed. I love this woman (Oh, I told you that!). I am so grateful for Christen B. Johnson, my glorious sweetheart! Read more in my latest EEW article, which begins below, about our relationship, how she has helped me beyond babysitting and how you, too, can be strengthened with parenting partnerships:
She came to me suddenly, unexpectedly with her bubbly way and smiling face. She had sat there in a center row, face focused front, but when I sat next to her she flashed me her 32s and my then 7 month old Nate clamored to be with her. We didn’t know her but she knew of me. She introduced herself and told me that she heard our women’s pastor mention me, knew that I was on maternity leave from ministry and had wondered who I was. Christen said she was single with no children and free to babysit my children anytime. I nodded and smiled. Even though I had just lost the help of another single woman with no kids who volunteered for six months to serve me and my family, mainly helping me with my newborn, it would take more than an introduction and a smile before I could trust this woman with my kids.
But after weeks of her offering and my desperation I invited this 24-year-old to have dinner with my family every Tuesday before our midweek services so we could get to know her. Immediately my boys liked her; my husband and I did, too, so I had her help me with the boys on Tuesdays and Sundays, the days my husband was fully engaged in ministry himself and I could supervise her interaction. Read the rest here.
My boys and Christen’s niece at the park with Christen
Nate at the library with Christen
Joshua playing ‘Ode to Joy’ on the pipes at the library with Christen
Justus at the library with Christen
My One Thousand Gifts List
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An invitation to contribute a cooking video to The Brand New Mommy Blog
Sharon rejoicing with me
Carla rejoicing with me
Flynn loading and running the dishwasher
Flynn calling Vince to produce my video
Vince being excited about producing my video
Children-initiated praise and worship
Nate blowing his trumpet in the corner toward the vase like he was making sure to praise God everywhere
A full night’s rest and early rising to have a rich time with God and a great start to prepare three meals
A clear outline for the parenting column
I’ve been quiet, still, listening for His voice to tell me when. . .
to finish my current project
to move on to the next one
to call that sister in need
to make adjustments so I can heed whatever He tells me to do.
I’ve been quiet and waiting until. . .
the time is right
I only take flight when He tells me to
And all this has been hard, my crumbling before myself to reveal a new self, a better self, better able to serve Him. And I’m leaning for understanding, for strength, for purpose, for shelter, for hope, for security, for surety, for life—leaning hard and won’t let go, can’t let go, until He blesses like He said He would. This stripping ain’t easy; it’s not supposed to be easy; if so I could brag about what I did, give Him no credit for ALL that He did, and live like I don’t need Him. Oh, do we need Him, God almighty, maker of heaven and earth and all that’s within them, made everything with a purpose, a great intended reason in mind. In Jesus lies every answer we need, but sometimes we have to be quiet, still, listening for His voice to tell us when.
My One Thousand Gifts List
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A God who speaks to me what I need before I even ask
The children making music together
Wisdom to seek pastoral counsel before posting my blog
A full, but not overwhelming, day
Being fully engaged in prayer outside my normal space
Nathaniel being overjoyed to see me this morning
Joshua clearly communicating the steps of his science project
A Spirit-filled conversation
Being offered a high-visibility ministry writing position
An invitation to speak at a Spirit-focused conference
Three times this weekend people have commented how amazed they are at how much I get done on a daily basis. As a wife, homeschooling mom, blogger, columnist, mentor and caretaker, they can’t understand how I take care of all my responsibilities and then some. I responded as I always do: “It’s the grace of God.” The last person who commented told me not to separate my organizational skills from the grace of God. “So often we think that we have administrators and organizers over here, and that is for the world and then over here we have preaching, teaching and fasting, and that’s for God. It’s all God’s grace.”
I thought about what he said and know that I have taken for granted that I have always had administrative skills, being organized being chief among them. I have just looked at my being organized as being something that’s a part of me and not something that has been imparted to me. My organization is a grace–an empowerment–from God, and I should always treat that skill as such.
Whatever gifts, talents, skills and abilities we have are from God and we all have to acknowledge that in how we use our strengths. Too often we take our strengths for granted and decide that we don’t want to use them when they weren’t given to us for us to decide when and how to use them. This is a habit many of us had that may have begun in childhood, but we are accountable today for how we use what God has given to us. Read more about that in my latest EEW column, which begins below:
Summer days make you want to be lazy, just hang out in the sun and have some fun. Who knows this better than kids? My youngest two have been having a ball, but my oldest is struggling a bit. See, he’s still in school, making up work that he had some difficulty completing during our scheduled home school year. He has been trying to negotiate with me, asking can he skip certain assignments that he believes he’s mastered. And as much as I want to give him a break, give the entire family a break from his whining and moaning, I say no, have to say no, because his desire to quit is more than just the summer itch; this is a pattern I saw in him long before the weather changed.
This giving up happens when he’s losing any electronic game, when a word search gets too hard or when he is told to redo some work that was not up to par. When something doesn’t come easy to him, he wants to give up so he doesn’t have to eventually suffer the ultimate defeat. This is how he is trying to define success. But I know, and you do too, that such a childhood pattern is the making of an adulthood pattern that will leave him stopping and starting everything from academic programs and jobs to relationships and, perhaps, even his faith. This is why our children need to know that they have to endure and don’t have the option of quitting when things don’t go their way. Quitting may seem the easy out now, but doing so will cause lifelong battles that they could avoid. Read more here.
My One Thousand Gifts List
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A wonderful Spirit-filled worship service
After lunch fellowship with Flynn
A restful nap
A chat with a 20-something woman who I believe God wants me to connect with
A love-filled text message from Nicole Washington
My boys in bed with me eating apples and watching Scooby-Doo
Justus’ smile
A pastor who keeps our focus on Christ and what He wants to do to and through us
Intense love for my husband where I now work hard to not point out his faults and flaws
Waking up without the jolt from crying boys or the need to prepare Joshua’s breakfast and lunch
