considerable grace

(Baby screamed all the way TO the photos and all the way home FROM the photos. But in between, we got these pics. Total baby photos grace! )





Hope your day was a good one too—

Yours,
Tara B.

(& Grandpa Joe, Nana Marlene, Sophia & Ella)

I think it’s so funny that Fred thinks our (laid-back, easy-going, mellow little) Ella sounds like a litigator in this movie:



(But he may be right ... )

Thanks to everyone for the prayers for my mom. I really do love her so much! And I’m so glad that she survived the surgery and is stable in I.C.U.

They did have to take her into surgery in the early morning hours because of more bleeding in the night. And she did receive four units of blood (which sure sounds like a lot to me). But it seems like things are going to be OK as long as she can keep the infections away and get that wound to heal.

I am grateful. I am also mindful that life is short and all of us must face our own mortality and the deaths of those we love. But I am rejoicing through my tears that I didn’t have to say goodbye to my mother today.

Hope your Sabbath was God-centered and restful!

Yours,
Tara B.

I would greatly appreciate your prayers for my mom, Kathy, as she was taken to the hospital by ambulance today for unexplained and profuse bleeding, transfused, admitted, and will be having surgery for an aneurysm in her abdomen tomorrow.

All this after fighting off a MRSA infection following an arterial bypass surgery last month and dealing with a wound that won’t heal (and requires daily wound care by an in-home nurse).

Poor mom! I know it’s going to be a long night in her hospital room tonight. (I keep trying to reach her just to check in one more time, but so far I haven’t been able to.)

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks and g'nite!

Love,
Tara B.

UPDATE as of Friday, December 4: She’s doing better and is HOME! Still fighting a staph infection, but (hooray!) it isn’t MRSA. Is uncomfortable from the surgeries, but hanging in there. THANK YOU for praying. Love—t

Ella and I have been hanging out with Grandpa Joe as he watches old Burn Notice shows:



If you’re not familiar with Burn Notice, it’s a television show that has some elements similar to The Bourne Identity (but less violent), good ol' Harrison Ford/save the day movies and the old MacGyver television show ... a smart, highly trained guy works for the underdog and is extremely resourceful; uses force/violence when necessary, but prefers to resolve things by other means. Total brain candy. Nothing redemptive—and BE FOREWARNED!—immodest dress (set in Miami) and some inappropriate/risque scenes. If that’s offensive to you—don’t watch!

But if you like action/adventure that’s well-written and well-acted, and you know how to mute and fast forward, you might want to check it out. Ella and I have surely had fun chllin' out with Grandpa Joe and watching the show.

Since Burn Notice is in NO WAY appropriate for Sophia, we’ve been passing our time with Cranium, Blokus, and a zillion chapters in On the Banks of Plum Creek. I think we’re going to finish it tomorrow.

Oh, and we also got to read the parable of the prodigal son with my dad and discuss it with him, too. So that’s been great (and far more redemptive). And last night we had an interesting discussion about what it means to be saved and justified by faith alone (not by works).

Thanks for all of the continued prayers! Hope your holiday weekend is going well too—

Yours,
Tara B.

HT: PureChurch for this link ...



(Totally reminds me of how Sophie the Peacemaker comes up and whispers, “Be a Peacemaker!” in our ears when Fred and I are stuck in a bad quarrel. Only this video is even a zillion times sweeter! Enjoy.)

Yes, I love all of the REAL traditions and details related to Thanksgiving: thanking God (not just being generically grateful), the amazing stories of Pilgrims and Native Americans, etc. etc.

But I also like to laugh!

So in that spirit, here are three things that always make me chuckle on Thanksgiving ...

1. Funny Cartoonists (like this one):



2. WKRP’s “Turkey’s Away!” Episode (Such a classic–especially for those of us who grew up in the 70’s. Hysterical.)

3. Turkeys on CakeWrecks (be forewarned—some CakeWrecks entries can be risque and use inappropriate language, but not these entries as far as I can tell) ... Oh, and I think that last year’s wrecks were way funnier—I laughed AGAIN.

Blessings to you and yours on this Thanksgiving day and every day!

Yours,
Tara B.

Thank you so very much for the kind blog and fb comments. I so appreciate your encouragement and just to let you know, we’re really having a very nice visit. Sophia adores the attention and fun being lavished on her, and Dad and Marlene adore Sophie and Ella, so it’s really a wonderful situation in so many ways. (Makes me really miss being closer to family!)



You know, I was doing the math last night and this year, my mom and my stepdad will be married for TWENTY YEARS. And in 2010? My dad and Marlene will be married for TEN years. This strikes me because I think I sometimes fall into the ol' trap of all children re: “my parents only exist in MY universe” and think about THEIR marriage to each other (because it was so impactful on me). But an accurate picture is that my mom has been married to Charlie for WAY longer than she was married to my dad, and my dad and Marlene are not all that far away from the length of their marriage either.

Life goes very fast, doesn’t it? Oh! How I pray that I will live each day resting in Christ AND striving for Christ too.

BTW—If you’re not yet on the RZIM Devotional Email List, I hope you’ll sign up because OH MY STARS! But Jill Carattini hit it out the park again today with her essay, "A Different Night." I’ll tempt you with her excerpt of a John Donne poem (a poet, by the way, that had a huge impact on me right before God saved me as a teenager) and hope that you’ll click through and read the entire post. It’s very worth your time.

"O most gracious God, on this sickbed I feel under your correction, and I taste of humiliation, but let me taste of consolation, too. Once this scourge has persuaded us that we are nothing of ourselves, may it also persuade us that you are all things unto us....

When your Son cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” you reached out your hand not to heal his sad soul, but to receive his holy soul. Neither did he desire to hold it from you, but surrendered it to you.

I see your hand upon me now, O Lord, and I ask not why it comes or what it intends. Whether you will bid my soul to stay in this body for some time, or meet you this day in paradise, I ask not. My true healing lies in silent and absolute obedience to your will, even before I know it. Preserve that obedience, O my God, and that will preserve me to you."

G'nite and much love,
Tara B.

If you’ve ever listened to my testimony, you know that I come from a bit of a challenging family background.

Thankfully, I have a good relationship with my mom, dad, and sister now. But every once in awhile, waves of emotions related to my past will splash over me (and often feel like they’re drowning me). This is especially true around the holidays.

I don’t know why the holidays can be so tempting to feelings of sadness, loneliness, and dissatisfaction with family relationships. Maybe it’s the canned, fake sentimentality of a “Folgers Christmas Commercial” perfect family. Maybe it’s genuine grief over the effects of sin on this fractured life in a fallen world. Probably, it’s a combination of the two.

Whatever the secondary causes, I know that at their foundation, my struggles are about my heart—my desires, fears, longings, lack of faith, lack of gratitude, sadness ... humanness.

And this week? As I looked forward to my father’s visit on the one hand and feared it on the other? When emotions from 30+ years ago felt as raw and real as they did in 1978? Well, I did what I always do ... I ran to the church.

I’m still cringing a bit over my wording (spontaneous prayer request times do not usually lend themselves to well-organized or pithy oratory, at least for me) ... but I’m very grateful that I stood up in church on Sunday morning and (shaking a bit and feeling weak and stupid), asked for prayer for my heart as I sought to serve my dad and his wife this week.

Many people have been so kind to let me know that they are praying. (One woman who I don’t even know very well, but I sure HOPE to get to know better, even stopped by with a ribboned package of homemade cards for me to open throughout the week when I need encouragement and a little love. Can you believe that? People are SO cool.)

And I credit their prayers with not only a day-by-day, minute-by-minute “OK-ness,” but also a fairly radical moment of conviction for me earlier in the week.

It came as I was thinking about what it might look like for me to remember Christ in the moments when I am tempted to hold a grudge or be ungrateful, critical, graceless, or just plain ol' mean. I thought to myself, "What does mercy look like in this moment? What would it mean to actually breathe grace / live the gospel / be a Christian in this moment?"

And I realized that it would mean that I would interact with my father as though he had a perfectly clean slate before me.

Rather than treating him based on things that happened (or didn’t happen) in my childhood, I would see before me a human being. (And in his case, a very frail, old, sick human being.) And I would have mercy on him and accept him as he is (rather than holding against him all the things he is not).

I would look for ways to be real, genuine, and authentic in my care of him (and his wife).

I would pray for him and be brave in actually reading the Bible to him (if he would so allow) and discussing it with him (if he would so allow).

I would be careful to treat him at least as well as I would treat a stranger in my midst. (Because it hit me—if I could be kind to a STRANGER, how could I not be kind to my own FATHER?)

Don’t you think that my little progression of grace just HAS to be from the One, True, Powerful, Almighty, All Loving, All Knowing, Forgiving, Gracious, Triune God? I do. And I am very grateful.

Thanks for the prayers, friends.

May we all enjoy a blessed, gracious, gospel-filled Thanksgiving.

With love,
Tara B.

We’re so grateful that Grandpa Joe (my dad) and his wife Marlene are here for a week’s visit. Ella (Eleanor) is named for his mother (my Grandma Klena), so it’s particularly wonderful that he gets to meet her:



Sophia’s having a blast too, of course!



And Sophie had a really fun violin lesson this morning. We just found out that she gets to play a Christmas carol in her violin recital next Saturday. She picked “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and our (wonderful) teacher Miss Laura is going to improvise a duet.

Today I snagged a movie of this portion of their practice because the descant was so pretty:



(The cooing in the background is Ella—she was on my lap as I filmed the movie.)

We were also tremendously blessed last night to spend time with our pastor (Pastor Jason), elder Jeff Laverman and his wife, Amy, and our elder Rich Mattson. They generously gave of their time to shepherd our family and we just can’t thank God enough for them:



Off to orchestra now!

Blessings on your Monday,
Tara B.

PS
We tried to snap a family photo just before we left for church yesterday. It didn’t turn out that great, but here it is anyway:



(Can you tell that Fred and I are in the middle of a big quarrel at that moment? Ahhhh—peacemaking ON THE WAY TO CHURCH. Gotta love it. )

Sophie, Ella and I counted down the time while Fred was at men’s prayer breakfast Saturday morning because we knew we were going to spend the day decorating for Christmas (!!).



It’s our family’s tradition to purchase just one ornament from any vacation as our sourvenir, and as we put up our tree, we tell stories about each ornament and adventure. We also re-live lots of memories (like the ornament Fred game me right before he proposed to me; the Clara ornament from our time at The Nutcracker with the Dunns; The Shedd Aquarium ornament from the infamous barfing Christmas—yuck!; and LOTS of music notes and pianos from back when I still taught piano lessons).



My favorite part of ornament hanging is laughing together over family stories that really only we could understand. For example, every year, I just well up over MY FAVORITE APPLE ORNAMENT that I hand-painted 30+ years ago. I just LOVE this ornament! So as you might imagine, I wasn’t all that happy when Fred told me during our first Christmas together that is WASN’T an apple at all. It was a STRAWBERRY.

HUH?! My whole life it’s been an apple! Couldn’t this be an apple?



(Apparently NOT. And every year we all laugh about it.)

In addition to decorating, Sophie and I also bopped on over to the Billings Metra Convention Center where a holiday craft fair was going on and the Billings Youth Orchestra Preludios were sharing a little holiday cheer:



We visited Skiddles the Clown for a little post-concert face-painting and balloon-bracelet celebration:



And headed home to finish decorating ...



Hope your Saturday was filled with gentle pleasures too.

Yours,
Tara B.

PS
From our family to yours, we truly Wish You a Merry Christmas!

I can’t go into the details, but today was a challenging day parenting-wise. Lots of long, hard conversations. Many tears. Much struggle.

But also? MUCH LOVE.

All day long, whenever these difficult parenting moments arose, I just kept on coming back, again and again, to the fact that God loves my daughter and I love my daughter and NOTHING (nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing!) could ever and will ever change that. Ever.

Temptations and trials? Failures and sin? Doubts, fears, worries, and dread? They are NO MATCH FOR LOVE.

Love covers over our sins. It really does! For the Bible tells me so ...

" ... love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

And at the close of this very long, very hard day?

When my eldest child snuggled tightly against me under the covers and we lay there all wrapped up together?

And she said, "Mom? You are my very best buddy"?

Well, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the kind of love that covers over a multitude of sins is pure grace. It really is.

G'nite all and God bless,
Tara B.

Fred and I recently had a helpful and relatively profound epiphany—at least it’s been profound for our friendship and marriage.

We realized that at the heart of many of our recent quarrels and fights, we were presuming that the other person was upset, unhappy, or frustrated. With us.

And usually? We were presuming that the other person was extremely upset, unhappy, or frustrated.

So then we either backtracked into some sort of “make it all better” over-reactive mode OR we became quickly (and disproportionately) defensive or even attack-y, so before you could say the word IRONIC, the other person WAS upset, unhappy, or frustrated.

Needless to say, this was not a pleasant rut to get stuck in relationally. But it was a rut—a well-established habit, routine, or pattern. So it sure hasn’t been that easy to change.

But now that we’re aware of the problem and able to name it, we can see it a little faster, pull out of it a little quicker—and sometimes (O! Glorious Sometimes!), we even avoid it entirely and laugh at ourselves together. As friends.

Grace for the moment, eh?
Grace for our ruts. Grace to get on up OUT of our ruts.

I’m a grateful gal.

G'nite!
– Tara B.

We made it home Wednesday evening.

All four flights were crying-baby-FREE, praise the good Lord.

Ella just cooed and smiled and charmed planeloads of tired, cranky people. Including her mother.

Sophie (as usual) simultaneously read some Narnia book while listening to another Narnia book being read on her Ipod. That kid sure has an interesting brain.

Back to real life now—

Gratefully,
Tara B.

PS
Does anyone else look this happy on a tiny prop-jop-commuter flight?

I’ve enjoyed many aspects of this family vacation:

- Sufficient length to really settle in and find an unhurried pace for visiting with family

- Some “normal” days of Fred working and me taking the girls through our standard routine of Bible / catechism / poetry / logic / reading / math / violin / play play cuddle laugh play

- One delightful JUST FRED walk out by the ocean wherein he actually held my hand and we could talk without interruption

- Sophia’s laughter and glee playing with aunts and uncles and cousins

I could list a bunch more, but they all come back to one thing that has truly ministered to my weary soul: relationships.

On this trip, I have experienced firsthand the blessing of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

These verses beautifully summarize what is so powerful to experience in life.

In psychotherapy, the term “therapeutic moment” is sometimes used to describe it. In the church, we might call it empathy (entering into the feelings of another) combined with wisdom.

But I think another term for it is simply friendship—real friendship; the kind of friendship that can be easy and comfortable over a slice of pizza or a game of cards, or intensely revealing in a difficult conversation ... the kind of friendship that has sufficient knowledge and understanding to speak into one another’s lives at a level that casual acquaintances simply can’t have.

How grateful I am to have spent all 39 years of my life with my sister—she speaks to my heart (and especially my past hurts) in a way that no one else can because she was THERE. She knows. So we can laugh and cry, grieve and heal, and persevere in a way that is unique to us. What a grace.

How I thank God for my husband, Fred, and the sixteen years we have spent together. Truly, we are one flesh. I could no more imagine my life apart from him than I could imagine peeling off my skin and living apart from my own body. He knows me better than any person could ever know me—and yet he loves me still! What a taste of Heaven to come.

And oh! How I thank God for IN-LAWS. My sister’s Fred and my husband’s brothers are truly the best brothers-in-law in the world. And to gain sisters-in-law too? Well, I am a blessed woman.

And in particular on this trip? Both Kali and Fred and John and Penny have given to us a number of “therapeutic moments” of empathy / real friendship when they have responded to some of the struggles Fred and I are going through with knowing glances, deep chuckles (that you just KNOW have come from some seriously HARD conversations), and encouraging, wise counsel that has really helped us.

Because they’ve been there.
They know the affliction.
And they know US.

So they can comfort us in the way they’ve been comforted.

Ahhhhhh—
What a grace.

Hope you have a blessed and comfort-filled Monday!

Yours,
Tara B.

Fred (the youngest) and his brother, John (3rd of the 5 Barthel boys):



Can you tell they’re related?

Walking through the tailgate area outside of Candlestick Park last Thursday for the 49ers-Bears NFL game was quite a cultural experience for me. For the most part, I really tried to just be in the moment, relax, and experience something new and interesting.

But every few feet, I would instinctively cringe in response to the extremely coarse / vile / crude language and sounds being blasted from various speakers. Of course, I have known intellectually for years that “out there” is an entire culture of music filled with blasphemous M*F* language and s*xual sounds. But reading about something in an article and having it forced into my ears and mind against my will at such a decibel level? Well. It quickly went past the level of an “interesting cultural experience” to something that grieved my soul deeply.

So you can imagine how blessed I was this morning to read Carolyn McCulley’s recent blog post on Media Matters and receive not only encouragement but a tangible, practical, strategic way to help too.

Please do read the entire article! Here is just a snippet to tempt you:

"I have a heavy concern that the “screen generation” is being fed more harmful images and narratives than uplifting ones ...

For example, this is how my day has gone so far. I checked the news, and saw stories about a 15-year-old girl who was brutally gang-raped by by anywhere between 7 to 10 men outside of a high school while at least a dozen others stood by and watched it without interfering, and a sadist who allegedly raped, murdered, and stowed the bodies of at least 10 women in his home ...

I then started work by listening to a media panel about “transmedia” efforts ... One of the panelists spoke without shame of working with a clothing company that sponsored an interactive game about a stripper. The gamer controls the stripper’s actions, which this media expert cheerfully said allowed the player to either make the stripper engage “in the most depraved actions” or “save her” ...

Listening to this panel, I wanted to scream: Why can’t we connect the dots here? Why is it that as a culture in the developing world, we put our heads in the sand and vociferously protest there is no connection between the media we consume and our actions? ...

Do we think we can allow people the fantasy of degrading and brutalizing others (especially women) and argue that this thought life will not eventually affect behavior?!

What can we do to change this thinking? I want to encourage each of you to become media activists. Please protest media that undermines the safety and dignity of women and girls, in particular, through social media and your wallets. Teach your children to understand that what they feast their eyes upon will become normalized to them. Let retail vendors know of your displeasure. And please support media that challenges these denigrating, dehumanizing trends by producing edifying content. I’m not arguing for cheesy, unsophisticated content in the name of being positive, but well-produced content that elevates human dignity.

That’s what I’m trying to do through Citygate Films. I have three documentaries in various stages of production, with one nearly finished with principal photography. A NOTE OF HOPE explores the idea that music reveals a lot about a culture. I’ll never forget what one of the African-American musicians in this film said after touring the Cape Coast slave castle in Ghana:

"If only our young adults could understand that they are descendants of those who survived these brutal dungeons, they wouldn’t accept prison as a normal passage of life."

One of the earliest song forms in America was the traditional Negro spiritual, songs that spoke of faith and trust in a just God who would redeem such harsh circumstances for His own glory. Those songs eventually became the code for the Underground Railroad and eventually the soundtrack for the civil rights movement. But now we have songs that celebrate thug culture and sexist, demeaning views of women. The jazz musicians who participated in this film want to see music used to elevate humanity, not celebrate our darkest drives. And their commitment to use their music to do so is the theme of this documentary."

I just made my (non tax deductible) gift to A NOTE OF HOPE. And now I’m going to sign off and pray for dear, brilliant Carolyn McCulley and her entire team.

May God be glorified!

Blessings to you and yours,
Tara B.

PS
Want to start your day with some sweet gospel jazz? Enjoy!

HT: Pastor Anyabwile at PureChurch for linking to this great post by Al Mohler on The Marks of Manhood.

He makes thirteen points that are all worth reading and reflecting on:

1. Spiritual maturity sufficient to lead a wife and children

2. Personal maturity sufficient to be a responsible husband and father

3. Economic maturity sufficient to hold an adult job and handle money

4. Physical maturity sufficient to work and protect a family

5. Sexual maturity sufficient to marry and fulfill God’s purposes

6. Moral maturity sufficient to lead as example of righteousness

7. Ethical maturity sufficient to make responsible decisions

8. Worldview maturity sufficient to understand what is really important

9. Relational maturity sufficient to understand and respect others

10. Social maturity sufficient to make a contribution to society

11. Verbal maturity sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man

12. Character maturity sufficient to demonstrate courage under fire

13. Biblical maturity sufficient to lead at some level in the church

I never would have been able to articulate it at the time, but sixteen years ago when I met and was immediately attracted to Fred, I am sure that I did evaluate his potential to be my husband along very similar criteria.

I encourage you to read and enjoy the entire article. It might prove to be a good starting point for conversations with both young men and young women.

Thanking God for mature men who befriended and shepherded me in the church when I was a teenager and young adult—they really modeled what godly manhood is all about.

And thanking God for my beloved hubby—

Yours,
Tara B.

HT: Challies.com for this link:



Please do keep praying for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen, and marines; their families; and all of the chaplains serving them too.

We’re enjoying some very late nights playing Wii hunting games and chatting with Uncle Fred. I didn’t think I’d be so into it! But it’s very addictive. (Ella thinks so too ... )



Yesterday was a super-fun-Auntie Kali & Uncle Fred-adventure-with-Sophia-day at the San Francisco Exploratorium:





And today we had a great time at the Bears-49ers game at Candlestick Park:



All thanks to the generosity of sistah Kali (for the tickets) and sistah-in-law Penny (who took care of the girls for us):



Hope your day was a blessed one too!

G'nite and God bless,
Tara B.

Sophie and I had a long conversation this morning about the differences between life in a fallen world as a fallen human being and intentional sin.

It was prompted by a pattern I’m seeing develop in her heart and behavior: After being given an instruction or correction, she is over-reacting and responding with very strong emotions that often manifest themselves as anger. She tries to hold it in and stuff it down, but we both know it’s there.

Thankfully, I’ve been blessed by such wonderful books as Uprooting Anger, The Heart of Anger, and Don’t Make Me Count to Three, so I knew that her angry responses were just the presenting issues—the proverbial tip of the iceberg as it were.

The real issue (as always) was a heart issue. And the only hope we ever have for heart issues must begin and end with the gospel.

Thankfully, Ella was in the mood to just play quietly between us on the bed, because we spent a good hour talking, crying, praying, and reading Scripture together. I don’t think I can remember everything we discussed, but here are a few of the highlights:

1. We used the example (hypothetical) of walking down the sidewalk, tripping, and hurting someone else.

- In the first example, I was walking carefully and paying attention—but I still tripped and hurt Sophie’s leg badly. How should I respond? Should I apologize and try to help her feel better? Yes. Should I beat myself up and say, “I’m such a horrible person!”, and have the rest of our day ruined by my mistake? No. I should give myself grace because, although I feel very sad that I hurt Sophie, it was completely unintentional. It was simply life in a fallen world. A mistake. And grace covers not only our sins but our mistakes too.

- In the next example, I was carrying a bunch of boxes while I walked down the sidewalk and Fred had just given me some wise counsel to be careful and possibly consider not carrying so many boxes all at once because I could trip and hurt myself or hurt someone else. He hadn’t commanded me, but he did instruct me and if I had been wise and listened to him, I could have avoided hurting Sophie. But I didn’t.

In that situation, my culpability is higher because I made an intentionally foolish decision and as a result, I accidentally hurt Sophie. It was still an accident, sure. But I could have avoided it if I had listened to counsel. So I need to ask Sophie to forgive me and strive to grow in wisdom by learning from my mistake.

- But in the final example, I was driving my car 70 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone. I knew the law and I intentionally disobeyed it. And then I caused an accident that hurt someone.

- Whoa! Now we’re in an entirely different realm, aren’t we? Because I sinned. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I need to confess to God and to others. I am called to repent and change.

(Then we had a little side lesson on the doctrine of sin—especially what “lack of conformity” means. It involved playdoh and a bouncy ball and how the playdoh CONFORMED to the bouncy ball, etc.)

2. And what is the first step of repenting? Sophie said, “Feeling bad about your sin.” So, of course, I had to correct her.

No. The first part of repenting is not feeling bad about your sin. The first step of repentance is to remember. What do we remember? Who GOD is and who WE are in Christ.

This was quite a telling point in our conversation because when I said, “Sophie, we must remember who we REALLY are. Who are we? How would you complete this sentence: ‘I am ...’”? Sophie said, “A sinner.”

!!OUCH!! My momma heart cringed. Oh! How I do NOT want that to be the first thing Sophie thinks. So I said, "Yes, Sophie, you are a sinner. But MORE importantly, what are you? You are LOVED. Chosen. Holy. Dearly, dearly loved.

3. This led into an entire conversation about just HOW MUCH she is loved, especially when she is sinning. That when she is caught in sin, God’s love for her and my love for her do not change, waver, or stop. In fact, our love compels us to draw even CLOSER to her, to help her, to rescue her because we love her so much.

The example I used for this was picturing the three of us (Sophia, Ella, and me) at a park when Ella is JUST starting to walk as a little toddler. I asked Sophie what she would do if Ella ignored my instruction to stay away from the high playground equipment and suddenly found her little toddler self WAY up high on the very, very edge of the play area. Would Sophie say, “You are a TERRIBLE little girl, Ella! You should be ashamed of yourself. Momma said not to do that and you did it anyway and now you could be REALLY hurt. You are SO bad! You’d better start being good and THEN I’ll love you again.”

Sophie said, “Of course not! I would RUN to her and snatch her back from the edge and comfort her and hold her. But, yes, when I knew she was safe, I would tell her not to do that again. And I would take her to you because she probably would need a painful consequence so she would really learn her lesson and be safe in the future.”

“Would you stop loving her when she was bad?” I asked.
“No!” Sophie replied.

“Would you want Ella to spend the rest of our day at the park hiding her face, crying, and saying what a terrible little girl she is?” I wondered.
“Of course not!” Sophie said.

"Sophie, it’s the same thing for YOU," I explained. "When you are caught in sin, you are putting yourself in DANGER. And since it’s my duty to help keep you safe and train you to see that the way of the sinner is HARD, but there are blessings in obedience, I do discipline and instruct you. But I do so BECAUSE I love you. It is my love that COMPELS me to rescue you. I don’t stop loving you, step back, and wait for you to get your act together. I run after you, just like you ran after Ella.

Then we read some Scriptures that affirmed all of these truths and we were just in the middle of praying when Fred came and joined us.

Oh! What a wise husband I have. I’ll close this blog post with his counsel to Sophie ...

After hearing about all that happened in our morning and the various lessons we were discussing, he also encouraged Sophie to remember that God has apparently made her heart with passionate, strong emotions. She feels passionately happy and passionately sad. This is great for making music and creating all sorts of interesting things in life (poetry, writing, art)—but it also means that she needs to remember her tendency will be to feel things very, very strongly. So she needs to guard against that and be wise, especially when she’s prone to feel overly sad and self-condemning.

(What a good reminder and lesson for me too!)

There is grace for our personalities, our frailties, weaknesses, mistakes—and yes, for our sin too. We can be forgiven because God is a forgiving, gracious God.

Blessings on your day!
– Tara B.

"Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose-—-all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable." William Temple

(HT: RZIM Slice 2070)

* WARNING * PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS POST DISCUSSES AN ADULT TOPIC THAT MIGHT NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES * WARNING *

Please consider joining me in prayer this week for all of the people serving at and attending the CCEF Conference: S*x Matters. And please do consider keeping tabs on their communications next weekend because hopefully someone will be live-blogging the entire event and I just know it’s going to be great.

Yes, it may be strange in some ways to talk about this topic so openly and intensely. (At least it is for me.) But it is also so very important! And I trust the CCEF staff 100% to approach it from a Christ-centered, Christ-exalting, biblically-faithful manner.

Plus, just reading some (excellent!) recent blog posts by Tim Challies and his wife, Aileen on the topic of s*x has already helped me to more comfortably broach the topic with some young adults in my life—and I am so grateful.

Single, engaged, married, divorced, widowed ... s*x affects us all. And yet it can so often be treated as “the topic that shall not be discussed.” It really shouldn’t be that way! Gracious, God-centered living in authentic community (within churches that love us enough to discipline us and help us to grow in grace) MEANS that we are going to be willing to talk about s*x.

I can give you lots of examples of this from my own Christian life (some good, some bad):

- A Christian friend reaching out to me in college over her struggle with habitual m*sturbation and dark s*xual thoughts. And me pretty much whiffing the ball and giving some (loving but) lame response that I still cringe over because I simply had NO IDEA HOW TO HELP HER.

- My own struggles (and failures!) re: s*xual sins as a teenager and young adult and the increasing GUILT that burdened me (and then often tempted me to sin even more).

- A church leader coming to me when I was in college and loving me enough to engage with me on this topic. He was so humble and gentle. He shared appropriately from his own struggles, pointed me to Christ, encouraged me, AND committed to praying regularly for me. (So many times when I was tempted, I thought to myself, “This church leader is praying for ME!” I can’t tell you what that meant to me.)

- My spiritual grandfather (Grandpa Bernie) talking so comfortably with me about his desire to remarry a wonderful woman after the loss of his beloved wife of 53 years. He had such a twinkle in his eye as we played Rummikub and he discussed not only her intellect, spiritual beauty, generous heart—but also how nice it would be to have someone “to have an to hold if you know what I mean” again. (What a guilt-free, pure & light, beautiful image of s*x the way God intended it! That had a huge impact on me as a college student. I said to myself, “I want THAT! 53+ years of THAT.”)

- Fred’s generous, gracious, lavish forgiveness of me as I confessed my sins to him during our courtship. (And his humble response of, “I’ve sinned much worse than that in my own MIND” to comfort me and remind me that he is just like me—even though it sure didn’t feel so at the time.)

- One of Fred’s brothers and his wife loving us enough to sit down with us during our engagement and talk about s*x. It was SO AWKWARD!! But so many times, especially during our first few years of married life, their counsel, concrete examples, and encouragement came back to me and were a huge help to me as a young wife.

- Dear friends in grad school sitting down with us during our engagement and asking us hard, direct questions about our physical relationship because they were concerned that we may be slipping into s*xual sin before marriage and they didn’t want us to miss out on the joy of an unsullied marital bed. (What courage!)

- Countless (direct, specific, saying the words that make me uncomfortable in the moment but that are SO IMPORTANT!) conversations with young people over the years re: what they are or aren’t doing with their significant others and what they are or aren’t watching on the internet / tv / at the movies.

- One of my elder’s wives being such a true friend and talking with me about our s*x life during that very rough season Fred and I went through when Sophie was a toddler and we miscarried our second child. I did NOT want to talk with her! It was so awkward for me, but she was such a real friend to me and such a real help to our marriage.

Obviously, I could go on and on, but I won’t.

I will, however, encourage you to:

- Read Tim Challies FREE ebooks: Sexual Detox for the Married Guy and Sexual Detox for the Single Guy (and keep checking back on his blog for more articles by him and guest posts by his wife).

- Read everything you can get your hands on re: s*x from CCEF! In just a few clicks, I found this great article by Winston Smith on “Premarital Counseling, Pornography, and Marriage”, a two-part series by David Powlison on Breaking Pornography Addiction, another great read by Winston Smith, “It’s All About Me: The Problem with M*xturbation,” and a three-part video series by David Powlison on marital intimacy.

- Take some time and really listen to (study / take notes on) Thabiti Anyabwile’s sermon series on S*X: “Keepin' It Real”, and anything and everything on the topic of s*xuality from the DesiringGod website (but be warned—there is a wealth of information there, so that will take some serious time).

- TALK with others about all that you learn / know / struggle with / doubt. Be real. Reject the myth of chronic uniqueness—you are NOT the only one struggling with s*x. You don’t have to “have it all together” before you can lovingly, gently try to help another person. (If that were the case, no one would ever talk with anyone!) It may feel impossible, but it’s not—we can get help. Confess. Encourage. DISCUSS. Pray. Study. Be real. Love.

Hope this helpful to you!

I am so grateful for the friends and church leaders over the years who have loved God and loved me enough to help me with this important topic. I really pray that we will all be equipped to be gospel-soaked light and salt in our own spheres of influence.

Blessings on your day!
– Tara B.

PS
I just realized that I forgot to explain the title for this post ... It’s because Sophie had a serious consequence (a double trouble painful consequence) right before we left home on this trip because she quickly glanced at my computer screen after I told her (quickly!) to LOOK AWAY. (There was some inappropriate ad on the side of YouTube.) She knows not only the rules ("When Momma says to close your eyes or look away, you OBEY!"); but the reason behind the rules. ("There are inappropriate things out there and we can easily be fixated by them, especially when we are younger, but really throughout our entire life. And if we LINGER, if we DRINK THEM IN, they can have a profoundly destructive influence on our hearts." — Such was the case with my own saturating exposure to p*rnography at a tragically very, very early age.)

And yet she (like all of us) was tempted. And in this case, she indulged. I wasn’t angry, but my heart was grieved and concerned. Oh how I prayed that the Spirit of Christ would help her heart to SO LOVE BEAUTY that she was detest that which is dark, sullied, the privation of good. That she would learn, truly learn, that the way of the sinner is HARD. But oh! There are blessings in obedience.

And I prayed for her husband and Ella’s husband too. I begged God to protect them all from the ravages and baggage and devastation of s*xual dalliances, indulgences, and addictions. How I pray that if my girls are called to marry one day, that they will enjoy free, happy, deliriously delightful s*xual relationships with their husbands—men who are free to enjoy the same because they are not having to work to overcome and damage caused by a life of indulging in s*xual sin.

SDG! For the King and His Kingdom. For His glory and our good. This is my prayer. – tkb

* WARNING * PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS POST DISCUSSES AN ADULT TOPIC THAT MIGHT NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES * WARNING *

We had a wonderful Sabbath yesterday with Fred’s brother John (3rd of the 5 Barthel boys) and his family ...

Happiness really IS Aunt Penny’s kitchen:



And her garden ...



But those cousins are pretty wonderful too!





Even if one of them HAS led deacon Barthel away from a quiet life of engineering / programming / peacemaking to the hard-rockin'-world of GUITAR HERO PLAYIN':



I’m thanking God for our dear family—

Yours,
Tara B.

The California fun continues for the ol' Barthel fam!

A really nice conducter found a way for all of us to squeeze onto his car (which was cramped and crowded and a little scary on the hills, but super fun!):





Couldn’t go past the salt water taffy store without buying a few BUCKETS of taffy. Oh, and the grossest jelly beans EVER—made to match jelly bellies, I guess you ask, “Is it cafe mocha or EAR WAX?!” "IT’S NOT CAFE MOCHA!!" Yeek! Total boy thing:



The weather was beautiful and the company was perfect. (Oh! And happy birthday sistah Kali!)





Now we’re looking very forward to meeting Uncle John, Aunt Penny, and cousins Calvin and Lucy over in Berkeley for church and a restful Sabbath.

Sending you love from sunny California—
Tara B.

Well ... just like most topics in life, I surely didn’t know one QUARTER of the potential issues, interests, challenges, and pitfalls associated with this one. Yes, yes, like most Christians I had (casually) “mediated” (discussed?) topics and conflicts related church building usage over the years. And thinking back on it, I’d have to say that pretty much every conflicted church intervention I learned about or reviewed when I was still on staff at Peacemakers had at least one church building use issue—even if it was only a presenting issue.

Still, I was surprised by how diverse the documentation from various churches is. Some really go the “three paragraph, only approved church ministries EVER” route. Others go the “three paragraph, open our doors wide to anyone” route. Most are somewhere in between.

If you’re interested in reading what I found to be a good/wise representation of a “middle of the road” approach, I encourage you to check out the summary and official policy for the First Presbyterian Church of Wheaton.

(Noting, however, that I am not RECOMMENDING their policy for your church because I have no idea what your church needs or what your leaders have decided for the convictions that will guide your policy.)

It’s just a good read if you like to read this sort of stuff (book of church orders, civ pro, etc.). A nice balance of generosity and colloquial wisdom with a little bit of Roberts Rules and lawyerly stuff thrown in to keep things clear.

(Oh, and I have no affiliation with this church whatsoever. I just found their docs through the magic of google. So if you DO have a relationship with this church and you ever learn that they’re ticked because I’ve posted links here, please just let me know and I’ll delete this post. I felt comfortable linking because a) it was in the public domain; and b) there was no language saying I shouldn’t. However, causing conflict over conflicts associated with church building use policies? Nah. I’d rather skip that if I can.)

Blessings to you all!

Yours,
Tara B.

Sophie and Fred enjoyed a nice morning at a park ...



Oh my STARS! But we had fun playing Wii and cuddling/reading with Uncle Fred ...



Then we headed to the “world famous” (would fit in our teeny tiny living room but was still super fun) PEZ MUSEUM:



And enjoyed a foggy, beautiful, super-fun playtime at the beach:





(BTW—this is the reason Ella is so happy. Built-in-entertainment courtesy of ol' Uncle Fred. This is her view—I snapped this photo over my shoulder while holding her.)



Hope your day was a blessed one too!

Sending my love from California—

Yours,
Tara B.

THANKS SO MUCH, everyone, for emailing me your insights (and documents!) re: church building usage. I am so grateful!

And I’m really hoping to get at least a brainstorming/draft document to our church administrator even while I’m out here in California. (Although I have to admit that taking walks, eating out on the back deck (with the ocean/forest view), and playing Wii Fit with Aunt Kali & Uncle Fred & Sophie has totally distracted me today.)

Needless to say, I could really use your help with this project. Specifically, if you could share with me the following information, I’d really appreciate it ...

Pretend I am in charge of a civic organization in your community (or a parachurch Christian ministry or whatever) and I’d like to use your building:

- How would I “apply” to the church for building use. (Who would I talk with? What questions would I need to answer? What forms would I fill out?)

- How would the church decide if my group could use the building? (Priority to members? Any constraints or priority given re: theology (open to anyone?) / risk of injury to persons or damage to the building?)

- Would I need to pay for use of the building? Pay for any staff time (unlocking the building / cleaning the building)?

I have to say, based on the comments I’ve received privately from people, this can obviously be a contentious and conflict-causing (peacemaking-opportunity?) issue.

Thanks again for helping me to help my beloved church!

Back to Wii now ... I really want to dethrone my Fred from his first place position on the skiing game.

G'nite,
Tara B.

I know that I’m blogging a lot on motherhood/home issues—that’s where the majority of my time is spent and where (obviously) my heart is most engaged these days.

But just to give you a little behind-the-scenes peek at some other things I’m working on:

- A friend has invited me to work with him on a book project related to peacemaking in the church and I am just THRILLED. I can’t wait for his wisdom to reach even more people!

- My denomination has invited me to serve at our women’s leadership conference in February, so I’m praying and trying to get organized for that event (and my other 2010 events too).

- I’m trying to help our church administrator to brainstorm on some ideas related to our church’s building and use policy.

It’s that last one that I would REALLY appreciate your help with ...

If you have a moment, would you please leave a comment or email me the specs of your church’s policy for building use?

Specifically, I’m wondering how your church balances the desire to generously SERVE your community with the importance of being WISE STEWARDS of church resources. (The lawyer-brain Tara particularly goes to legal liability and insurance risk issues on that one.)

Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

Hope you have a blessed day—

Yours,
Tara B.

Soph had a blast rehearsing the “really FAST” part of one of her fiddle songs today at youth orchestra and we thought you might enjoy seeing the last minute or so:



(Most of the kids are just playing a repetitive note during the hard part, but Sophia volunteered to do the running sixteenth notes “just for fun.”)

Hope this gives you a little chuckle at the end of your day.

G’nite and God bless—

Love,
Tara B.

As usual, I fell asleep just fine last night. But then I startled myself awake with a stressful (dream? thought?) about flying with Ella this coming Wednesday. (Will she cry and cry? Will I be unable to comfort her? Will people be furious? Will I have enough brand-new earplugs and $5 bills to offer people (for a glass of wine) if she’s totally freaking out?)

Those thoughts quickly jumped to my desperate need for uninterrupted time to work on digging out the guest room (organizing/archiving/giving away baby clothes, Sophie’s clothes, and (hopefully!) prepping a couple of huge ebay lots of maternity clothes.

Before you could say, “Go back to sleep, Tara!”, I was thinking about how November has more birthdays in it than any month of the year (and how I REALLY needed to get our birthday cards in the mail TODAY or else they wouldn’t arrive on time). My Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Committee dues are due. And our life insurance premium. And and and ...

I have to say, I wasn’t even stressed or sad about any of that. But I WAS motivated to try to GET IT DONE. And the ebay lot project really needed time apart from the girls so I could concentrate, so I just got up and got to work.

Except for the strange-pulling-an-all-nighter feeling (you know that TIRED EYES, slightly fuzzy-brained, a little disoriented sense you have when you’re writing a paper in undergrad that’s due in the morning OR just starting to outline CRIMPRO at 2AM the day of the final?), it’s actually a nice time to work. I have TWW to keep me company and I’m totally cranking on loading, I mean IMPORTING (Ipod lingo for you .mp3 reluctant folks like ME) Soph’s unabridged Narnia CDs.

So anyway ... back to work. It’s going to be a very survival-ish day for the ol' Barthel girls today once the pack starts to stir in a few hours. But that’s OK! Lots of Little House on the Prairie to read, Blokus to play, and cuddles to share.

Blessings on your Monday! Hope it started WAY later than mine (unless you’re living in Japan—Hi SarahJoy!—or Australia—Hi Andrea & Andrea’s mum!).

Yours,
Tara B.

PS
Here are just a few more photos of our family’s autumnal fun this past weekend ...

Continuing to avoid all indoor places with large groups of people (the flus and colds are rampant in Billings!), we did enjoy a little costume-dress-up-fun at the Zoo yesterday:



And then topped off our day with lots of cuddles, reading, and a pizza and movie night replete with the old classic, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:



To be a little productive, we DID spend a little time in the morning learning how to add 3 digit numbers to 3 digit numbers (including adding dollars and cents), so that was very hard and very fun. (To be honest, only Sophie learned how to do this. It was more of a review-type-thing for Fred and me. )

But mostly, it was just a nice, calm, restful family day in October. What a grace.

Hope your day was a fun one too!

Yours,
Tara B.