Creative Outlet

I think part of being a stay-at-home-homeschooling-mom/planter's-wife means that you have a lot of creativity that longs to come out in new and unusual ways. I end up doing massive projects for homeschooling with the kids, most of which do not turn out exactly how I envisioned but we enjoy the journey. I also read and research a lot of DIY stuff and am now making my own bread, pizza crust, power muffins and such. I used to have a sewing machine and made my own hooter hider (or udder cover if you'd rather). I have patterns and material packed up in boxes and crates awaiting a new sewing machine, hopefully with a serger as well!!! But that's a long time off. So I've been contenting myself with my hot-glue gun. Lately my passion has been book wreaths. I made one out of old hymnals for my dear friend Joanne who's family moved to Nacogdoches for a ministry position. But that just whetted my appetite. Today, I made one for my sis-in-law who is a AP English teacher in Midland. I used Margaret Atwood and Shakespeare books and this was what I created:

I added the used book binding from the Margaret Atwood book and glued in a quote:


A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.  ~Edward P. Morgan

I LOVE how it turned out. I think next I'm making myself one 

Next stop: Etsy! But how would I ever ship these?!?

Handful...of blessings

These are my precious boys. It's always superhero day at our house, and occassionaly we all go as the same superhero. They are all 3 characters with enough personality in each one individually to flatten you, but put together they can be a tornado. The most often comment I get when we come waltzing into stores, restaurants or the mall is, "Whoa! You've got your hands full!"

And yes I do. In fact I could use a third hand most of the time, especially crossing the street or parking lot. But we figure it out. Usually, I hold Elijah's hand, he hold's Gideon's, Gideon holds Judahs and we quack as we walk since we look like a line of little ducks.

They can be pills too. They fight over who gets to be which superhero and who has which power. Sometimes feelings get hurt when Judah makes an air castle and Gideon doesn't have a flying buffalo to get up to it. One time, Gideon punched Judah in the face for arguign about Captain America's benefits and flaws. So I had to literally carry out the Gospel on him, and take away his privledge of using his hand for an hour:

 (I'll post later about the many uses of duct tape in discipline ;))

However, mostly, they are just precious. THey run up out of nowhere to hug me tight and say, "I love you, Momma!" They fill up my water bottle for me when it's low. They say, "Yes, ma'am" when I ask them to do something (most of the time). They play with each other so sweetly, even if it's rough and tumble. They love their brothers. They love their parents. They love Jesus.

So when someome says to me, "Whoa! You've got your hands full!" I say, "Absolutely! Full of Blessings!"

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.
Psalm 127:3

Roll the Gospel Chariot Along

So, it's been awhile. Mainly because the Life of a Planters Wife is unpredictable as weather! We've had our house on the market for 5 1/2 LONG months. We have had a stream of picky and ecstatic potential buyers flowing through the doors at all hours of the day, nap-time not held sacred by the real estate agencies. We've had 4 offers, 2 contracts and not 1 closing day! We prayed; we fasted; we lowered prices; we packed up everything and we waited. My dad got married and moved out; we moved everyone downstairs; we had a garage sale. Nothing doing.

One night I was reading through my Bible study from The Upper Room I came upon a promise from Isaiah 45:2,
"I will go before you
and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,"
I was immediately struck that this was still God's Word to us. That whatever was keeping us from where He had us going, He was also perfectly sovereign over and capable of overcoming. So I wrote the verse on a piece of paper, and then wrote all over it the things keeping us from moving to Madison: selling the house, jobs in Madison, supporters, a place to live, etc. I then cut the paper in half, broke bread over it and took communion with my Lord over His Gospel being sufficient for even me. I felt secure it was in His hands.

That was 3 months ago.

Two weeks ago, things changed again. It became obvious that there was a blessed opportunity for my husband to finish a certification that he has been working on for a few years. Finishing this certification would open up some lucrative and less-time consuming work opportunities. Finishing this certification means staying here. But at the same time I remembered the verse, communion and the peace I had experienced. I felt the same overwhelming message, "God is sovereign over this and perfectly capable of overcoming any obstacles." I have often said it is difficult to tell the difference between a roadblock from Satan and a closed door from God--they feel the same. The difference, I've discovered, is that a closed door WILL NOT open, but a roadblock WILL NOT remain. So, I told my husband, "If God wanted us to sell the house, He could have done it 5 months ago. We would have been in Madison before the ink was dry. If it's not selling, it's because God has something else in mind right now. I don't hear 'No', just 'Not yet'. Let's be faithful and wait on God until strength rises."

So that's what we're doing. We're following God still. He's driving this crazy train and I'm just sitting back eating my popcorn. Until May, the Hartnagles are in Temple, TX. Was that our plan? Nope. Was it God's? Apparently! So here we are doing the only thing HE has ever asked of us: being obedient. Not through our strength or from our motives or for our glory but His. And as long as we're here, we're going to love on people, get to know our neighbors more, bless our city, live out the Gospel.

We're rolling with the Gospel, and that's how we roll!

Rules of Engagement--Part 1

My husband has always said that my red hair is just a symptom of my being a red head. My fiery temper and feisty spirit are the true causes behind it, and I believe that his smirk as he says it belies his attempts at acting put out. He wouldn't want a wimpy woman standing by him, and, quite frankly a eye-lash-lowering gal wouldn't make it as Jonathan's wife! I needed a backbone!

But there's a flip-side to that light joke. James says that our tongues are not set on fire by our feisty spirits but by hell itself, and if you've ever experienced a season of contention in your marriage, or even just had a fight (and if you've been married for more than a week you have--or your a liar), you'll know exactly what he means.

Listening to Mark Driscoll's podcast a few months ago, Marriage, Ministry and Mistakes, he said that if you're entering the ministry and especially church planting, when it comes to spiritual attacks, you better buckle up. Even if you've experienced some attacks on your marriage before, you haven't seen anything yet compared to what you will experience when you accept a call to ministry or church planting. I remembering chuckling at that (I usually chuckle at Mark), and wondering exactly how that might be playing out in our lives.

Boy, was he right!


I don't know where you stand on spiritual attack, but I'm sold that it happens. I'm convinced it happens regularly to Christ-followers. I'm assured that it happens daily or even hourly to ministers, their wives and their families. We are certainly experiencing it in our home. There are many different ways I see it playing out, both at home personally, and in the lives of other Christ-followers and ministers I know. Here are a few ways I see it happening.

1. Health--what is normally a healthy family with just a few regular illness a year, suddenly can't seem to get on top of the health cycle. Before they are fully recovered from one virus or infection, another one sets in, or they pass it around endlessly never having the whole family well at the same time. Sometimes, and I'm thinking of the Village here, there are HUGE diseases that, for no apparent reason and against all odds spread like wildfire among a church, staff or family unit. The enemy loves to attack our health and our children's health. It keeps us on our heals, at our lowest resistance, prone to feeling overwhelmed, scared and sorry for ourselves. The last thing we're interested in when our kids are running 102 or we have cancer is making sure that our discipling is going well. Illness is an excellent distraction.

2. Finances--if mammon is our most sought after idol, then this is the easiest thing to attack. Suddenly, the numbers don't add up anymore, there's a layoff, a cut back, business drops or drys up. The car breaks, the taxes are due, the roof leaks. We have no padding or maybe we can't even pay the bills. We are walking to the grocery store, sewing up holes in jeans cause we can't buy new ones and politely excusing ourselves from play-dates at the zoo cause we just can't afford the gas or price of admission. This is a great tactic for the enemy with me because fear is my weak point, my button. I start panicking and racing around, selling the kids toys and trying to drum up ways to pay people. We become stalwarted in our efforts because we can't afford to go out to dinner with other families or send flowers to the sick. We want to hide in our houses. Especially when this attack comes through layoffs, we are embarrassed and hear the enemy whisper, "If a man cannot manage his own household, how can he manage the household of God?

3. Bickering and arguing--suddenly everything is annoying. Everyone is on everyone else's nerves. The least thing grows to hurricane proportions in 2.5 seconds and then you want to run away or scream or runaway AND scream. You read ulterior motives into everything your spouse or children or parents or friends say. You take everything personally. There is absolutely no grace given, no room for "Seeing the other side". You dig in your heels and defend to the death whatever point you are making.

4. Doubt--you begin to wonder, "Did God really call us to do this, or did He call someone else and we just answered the phone?". It seems overwhelming and impossible, the task set before you. You seem like the absolute worst pick for the job (by the way you ARE and there's a reason for that), and God must be crazy to choose you for this (He is--and I can defend that biblically). It's going to fail miserably and you're going to fall on your face and all the "I told you so"s will gather around you and wag their heads.

5. Discouragement--those that are closest to you, whom you love dearly, who you were SURE would support you, question everything you say about what you're doing. They come up with brilliant arguments about why you absolutely should not pursue this course of action and even seem spiritually aware that God is NOT calling you to do THIS. They point out all the flaws in your plan and are the first to raise their eyebrows when the money gets tight, or disappears and the first to jump on the bandwagon when you voice doubts.

There are a "legion" of other ways that the enemy attacks. He is insidious and sly and he is NOT by any stretch of the imagination a gentleman. He wants to mess with you and the last thing on earth he wants is an effective minister and family. The problem with these things are that they all deal in lies. He is the father of lies and the accuser. He whispers a lie, you buy it and then he immediately accuses you of believing the lie and how horrible you are for thinking this.

I've been going through this and more. I've been walloped a lot, and I'd like to think I've dealt a few blows myself. What I'd like to do is discuss spiritual warfare, especially in regards to the areas mentioned above and I'd like to share my experience, my beliefs and most importantly (perhaps the only one of real importance anyway) the Biblical response to these.

I'm going to be real and honest here. If that makes you uncomfortable that a minister and his wife fight or yell or sin, then please don't read on. But I am a firm believer that "the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life." 1 Timothy 1:15-16

So come along. Watch Jesus display his perfect patience in me. Put on the armor and get ready to strap on your piece and do business with our enemy!

As we approached the summer (other wise known as "birthday season) with the intent to move in June, we realized we had a problem. Judah's birthday is June 1st. No problem there, we would almost certainly still be in Texas for that. He would get to, in effect, have his cake and eat it to, with having a birthday here where all his friends could attend. But Gideon was a different matter. His birthday is August 1 (no, I didn't purposely plan that, though it helps on remembering birthdays!). We fully planned on being in Wisconsin by August 1. That would be great for heat index, but not so great for Gideon's birthday bash. None of his long time friends would be able to make the drive! It might be a lonely and rather sparse 4th birthday.

So, being the creative and extraordinary mom that I am, I decided to do a combined birthday in the middle. I hadn't really factored all the issues in while making this decision: agreeing on a theme, agreeing on a place, agreeing on an invite list. But, as luck would have it, Judah is very persuasive and Gideon is fairly agreeable, and we got over each issue with minimal damage done.

Our Green Lantern fiesta was planned and invitations divvied out accordingly. In brightest day in darkest night, no detail did escape my sight. We were at a splash pad in our town and we had so much fun! Some of our very best friends were there (Judah, Gideon and Momma's!). And I loved watching them run and play with their besties for what may be one of the few times left this summer. I decided that the least messy version of birthday bliss was Cake Pops!! I was ecstatic to make these. The only problem being that I took the advice of the author of the book Cake Pops, whom I had assumed had actually made cake pops before. Boy was that a silly assumption!

THe actually cake ball forming went just fine. I have a plan in place for making them more round and less...lumpy next time, but the taste was excellent and I already have recipes in my head for better versions. But the real problem came when I began to coat them. The recipe told me to put the pop sticks in FIRST and let them set, then to coat the rest with chocolate. Bad idea, Indie! It did not work out well. I had half coated cake pops, or cake pops dripping on the floor. When I attempted to fix them, the affixed themselves to my cooling tray and I lost 4 in the battle! I nearly went all Kings Speech on them, but I refrained.

I am proud of my display method though. I needed foam to stick them in at the party. So I bought a wreath form and two rectangles and made the Green Lantern symbol. I painted it all green and coated the cake pops with white chocolate, so it was color-correct.

I do wish that someone had warned me I needed to be Super-hero knowledgeable to raise 3 boys! I had to answer the question, "If Superman and Flash ran a race, who would win?" I have no flipping clue!! But I honestly love that they like super heroes. I think it's an easy transition to Bible stories and the ultimate Super Hero.

In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let all who worship evil's might
beware my power, Green Lantern's Light!

Maelstroms and Mayhem

Elijah has become a walking maelstrom in our house.

If you're not wanting to open your Webster app, the definition is: a powerful often violent whirlpool sucking in objects within a given radius

That's Elijah!

Each of my kids demonstrated a particular ability early and earlier than their brothers. Judah was fine motor skills. His pincer grasp came very early and he could feed himself before he could even sit up alone. Gideon was verbal skills. He was imitating sounds at 2 months and hasn't shut up since! Elijah is my gross motor skills. He rolled over early, crawled early, walked early. He could climb our spiral stairs before he could even stand unassisted. He has a desperate need to keep up with his two older brothers and that keeps him in band-aids and us in constant motion.

Thus his maelstrom-like tendencies. Only mayhem follows a child that is physically ahead of his mental development. When they walk before they understand "no" sufficiently, there's going to be disaster.

Last Wednesday, Elijah was showering in the upstairs shower. He put his hands on the glass door to tell Daddy he was all done. Jonathan, not used to Elijah in the shower, swung the door open. HOwever, Elijah was pushing on the door. When Daddy opened it, all of Elijah's weight fell out through the open door, his wet feet slipped on the shower floor and he fell. Luckily, he caught himself...with his front tooth! Knocked it loose. Blood everywhere.

At first we couldn't tell what exactly was wrong, the lip and gum were swollen. But as the swelling went down, we could tell that the tooth wasn't really that loose anymore. We hoped that it would firm back up and he could keep it.

But accident prone as he is, that was a silly wish. Sure as the dawn, 3 days ago, he tripped again (this time on dry land) and hit his face right on that tooth, knocking it loose again. If he'd just have the good grace to knock it all the way out, we'd be done with the drama. I'm not really concerned about him losing a baby tooth. He'll grow another one in a few years. But what I don't like is his little snaggle tooth (he looks like Nanny McPhee...before the kids like her) that he keeps biting his lip with.

So, we gave in and called an old family friend, Dr. Boyd, today. He is the best. So gentle with kids and so sweet. He told us it would probably come out on its own, but since we're moving, he doesn't want us to have to try and find a dentist in Madison to pull it if something goes wrong.

So, next Thursday our already goofy child will get some laughing gas and be even sillier. Jonathan is dying to video tape it and put him on YouTube. Something like David after the Dentist is what he's hoping to achieve I think. Since it's Elijah and not Gideon, that might be a long shot. Maybe we can get some laughing gas for Gideon too!

Keep Elijah in your prayers. He doesn't like people messing with this mouth!

He Gave me You!

Mother's Day has such a mixed message for me. My mother left when I was 16. Actually left on my birthday to go off and find her true happiness (which, by the way, wasn't us). I hated Mother's Day for years. Then I got pregnant. I wasn't even thinking of Mother's Day; my baby wasn't due until June 27th, but my MIL sent me a Mother's Day card, and all of a sudden it struck me that I was becoming what I didn't know how to be.

Looking back that's laughable. Whether your mom was wonderful, terrible or not even there, you have no idea how to be a mom! It doesn't come with instruction booklets or a return policy or a website of FAQ's. There's books, sure. Too many actually. I have a sweet friend that would get an A+ on mothering research if we were handing those out, but still felt inadequate to care for her baby.

I hated Mother's Day from the time my mother left until I became a mother. I thought Mother's Day was about honoring moms, and it definitely is. But now, with my sweet first born turning 6 soon, and 2 more blessings as well, Mother's day has taken on a different meaning to me, or at very least a dual meaning.

I feel honored as a mom, but I also feel honored to BE a mom. I have become more aware than ever of the high calling of motherhood, the depth of dependancy on Jesus it requires and the level of submission it demands. I am in awe of the scope of the task that is placed before me, not for now, or for 18 years a pop, but for eternity. Every moment of every day for the rest of my life, I will be their mom! I will be guiding them, training them, teaching them and most importantly Gospeling them. I know it will look different as they age, but I will always be their mom. The weight of that floors me sometimes. These little men are my calling, my highest calling, and my very great responsibility. They are not my possessions, my keepsakes, my trophies. They are on loan to me, stewarded out to me, to point them back to their Daddy, their BIG DADDY, and be molded and formed in His image. I am not worthy of this!

I often get overwhelmed and bogged down in the mundane tasks of motherhood: make your bed, brush your teeth, do your homework, eat your food, ALL your food, not too much TV, play fair, go to sleep. And that can whittle your life down to where it's ALL The mothering I do if I don't watch myself. But mothering is so much bigger. I am literally molding their hearts, training their minds, setting their footsteps.

I find myself constantly in prayer, asking God to make me worthy of Him, of His calling on my life to be a mother. I ask Him to parent through me. To move me out of His way, and love my boys in the perfect way that I cannot. I realize that they make me more vulnerable to hurts and fear than anything else ever can. They could wrench my heart in ways not even my husband has the power to do. To scratch them is to cut me; to bruise their hearts is to pulverize mine. There is so much out there to injure them and so much at stake for them. I have been brought to my knees, interceding for them that they follow Christ, that His plans for their future are to prosper them and not to harm them to give them hope. I am beginning to understand that I can truly have, "no greater joy than to hear of my children walking in the truth."

That is my prayer this Mother's Day, that my boys may know and be known fully in Jesus. That I may live a life worthy of the calling of the Gospel in their lives. That I may daily, hourly, repent of where I am falling short and surrender to Him loving them through me. And that I may ever be blessed to be called, "Momma".