What My Son?

God's Boys will be good boys!

What, My Son, as you Graduate?

Getting ready for prom!

God's Boys will be good boys! Everytime it is promtime for my children, I cringe. I wonder, why God makes me so sensitive of this occasion for my children. I wonder why much of my heart goes out in prayer for my child to have a memory that I never had. The fire that would have consumed our house on that night and the gladness that I still have the real treasures of my life that I would not have had, if my prom hadn't been such a source of contention between my mother and I. She wanted me to miss it. Or she was having a premonition. I don't think that prom and hunger are exclusive. I think that you can have food and prom and sisters to love for the rest of your life. I think that God can protect you if you dance from your heart. I don't think that the knowledge that you are a good dancer will make you too proud. I hope you dance!

Topic of the day, conversation about "To God be the Glory!"

God's Boys will be good boys! Humble, humbling? We were conversing this morning of the benefits of various methods of education. Does any group have a handle on challenging and coaxing the minds of young people to greater endeavors without endangering their souls in the process. This is truly the question of the day. Do we let them wander in unbelief, finding truth after truth and hope that they bump into God as they wander, aimlessly? Do we train them vigorously, always pointing out the privileges of their disciplines and point them to God and make great pharissee-like people who grow knowledge, but whose pride endanger them moreso? It is truly a dilemma. Discipline is important. Humility is important and Christ has dominion and bought salvation for us, by His blood. I think that we steal precious years of relationship with God from children, by our expectation that they will bump into God on their own accord. On the other hand, we endanger them more, if the pride of place that they inherit in their faith condition, keep them from knowing the true and living God. {God resists the proud} I do see the examples of our era being the apostle Paul and Daniel. They were both men of great faith and great intellect. Sometimes, it seems that our faith impedes our study and the antithesis is also frequent. I imagine Daniel in the laboratory with some other faith filled people in the captivity in Babylon and someone asking him, why he is studying so hard. Doesn't God give knowledge through prayer and waiting upon Him? This is the frustration of faith. The scriptures show the apostle in Corinth, after redemption had already been purchased and his greatest enemies were the people of faith. God is love and God is also clearly represented in the truths that He has revealed in the natural revelation. I think that this is a great discussion for Pi day. We will discuss it more, later. It is the Christian's responsibility to be a student as well as a pray-er. God has given us minds to serve Him with as well as emotions. Humble acceptance of His ways and still avid search for how He accomplishes His will on the earth are not in isolation from eachother, but, hand in hand they guide us into "greater and greater light of God's ways" "unto the perfect day". {until we are able to see His ways more clearly}

SAT story

God's Boys will be good boys!

We've been intending the SAT's for years and years. From birth, we start talking into the children's ears about the perfect score that we intend for them to have. Everytime one of mine has an SAT scheduled, I cry about not having been able to discuss the test taking tips that I have learned over the years. We have baby mobile's with SAT questions and multiple choice ditdots for the baby to bop around with. We ask them vocabulary questions here and there with words that we are sure will be on the test. We've had some false starts. SAT discussions seem a Bodden delight. ie. children who got perfect scores, here and there dotted around us. Where, oh where is the smart "Bodden child" who will verify our teaching skills, by getting a great grade on the SAT's, so we can brag about it? None of our children are there, yet. {we are saving some accomplishments for Stoney to show all the rest of the grandchildren up in,LOL}

It amazes me that other families don't even talk about the SAT's till after they are over. Those are the ones who score the best, I think. Ours are all duds, we lament. They are beautiful children with no ambition for a perfect score. We will have to pay their way through college, or live working at Walmart forever. No shame in that. My children, I have found have very little test taking ability. They are smart in their sphere and test takers they are not. Me, my adrenaline lives for testtaking opportunities, none of them have inherited my lust for the perfect score.

The last time we tried for the SAT's Enoch had forgotten is i-d card. We were soooo disappointed and discouraged. How can we get this elusive test behind us? The wall seemed to grow and grow for the SAT's. The reschedule of the SAT's for us was postponed, on account of snow in January and today was the reschedule. We were holding our breath and crossing our fingers. Will he be able to take the SAT's. I tried to give him every trick that I had thought of for good test-taking. We've been talking about the SAT's from birth. He is not one of the children who takes the SAT's at 12 years old, but he is a good young man, who has dreams that seem always to grow a wall around them and the SAT's began to represent a wall around our dreams for this young man. Last year's scare and emotional time included. I simply cannot go into the cataclysm of events that nearly kept us from being able to transport him to the SAT's because of auto misfortunes. We had a blocker for that tackle and it was Ben who was in charge of the transportation dilemma. Now, we had transportation, identification...what else is coming at us, to try to keep my student from being assessed? We could only guess.

We woke this morning as we had the time before. We got ready and we could feel all of the cumulating SAT stories swirling around in our heads; with the knowledge that this day would be history in the making as all of the other's have become.

I let him make his own breakfast.{maybe my doting on him had jinxed the times before, I thought} We are not going to make a big hullabaloo about this. It will come and go. We drove out the door at 7 to be there by 7:45, making sure that he had the necessary Identification for himself and whatnots. A lunch, a mother's kiss, talking to's. Snow started falling as we got to the school. Students from around were also taking their SAT's. I don't know why I felt like crying. I didn't cry when Emily took hers or Elyse. They had their stories, but not so emotional.

The school that we go to for the SAT's has a nice little campus and darting around in the snow were a community of sundry birds who were playing in the snow. Amazing that they had no care of the SAT's and what they can mean for a person's future. They seemed to tell me not to worry. I listened. God will take care of En. With or without the SAT's he will get along, I know and I giggled to think that God is reminding us not to worry, even about our life situation and the dilemma's that we live under, in this shadow time.

I do wonder if it will stop snowing. It did stop and we left my boy, as if in the kindergarten, although he's a man. I care about him and he knows it. A humble resignation to the inevitable, seems to be the emotions that he exudes. He is really so introverted, that we really can't guess if he's nervous or not. He never wants to bother anybody, in any way. He's got this and we are here for him, either way.

My heart was in my stomach for him all day. This is not easy for a Walker fellow. They are great at design, but tests take them all to their limits. I've seen my children squirm at the thought of a vocabulary or mathematical assessment. I would spare them, but I live in the light of their difficulty in this. All day, I cast my care on Jesus, for my dear boy. I walked and prayed and hollared at anybody I could, namely Ben. He's so patient with me in these days. He must wonder why I care so much about these little things. I do.

He called and I heard the dropping of a weight in his voice. "Is someone coming to pick me up?" He's a man now. 18 and finished the SAT's applications for college need the score for him. He is definitely a hardworking student, but with no SAT score, there is little hope of any future at all, in this world, they say. We know God is in control, regardless. The heavens seemed to applaud the Walker's accomplishment of this high hurdle. The snow came down in drodes to mark the day and we are all in the excitement of a day well spent in the focus on the most unassuming and dearly delighted in, "boy of my dreams", doing the natural next thing. Taking the SAT's.

The man of the hour!

God's Boys will be good boys!

Today is the first day of the second and last semester of Highschool for the eldest son of my womb. We have come a long way from the little fellow who used to drop to his knees to sing, how can a young man keep his way pure? Still pursuing purity, sometimes to the chagrin of his less conservative sister. The comments were well taken this morning. Modesty must be pursued, you reminded us. Learning the right way to share this difficult concept for women is all around you. We are listening, even when we don't seem to be. Running to the tape of highschool and trying to do the best we can, is the task at hand. We are expecting much from you.

Confessions of your recovering Chocoholic mother!

God's Boys will be good boys!

Dear, dear hearted boy, I know that you are concerned with your mother's welfare and health. It is delightful to know that I am blessed with children who care. {I don't like it when you show too diligent a concern for my chocolate habit, but I know that it is love}. Last night, at the turn of the year, 51 years into my life, I discovered a flavor. This flavor is new to me, in sparkling cider flavors. I had thought that I had tasted all of the flavors that they had made. But, as we toasted the new year, my pallet was again initiated into a new delight. You will find that the older you get, the less you find new flavors to impress your pallet. Especially, if you have a sweet tooth, like we both do. My tastebuds are entirely given over to the tasting of chocolates, in the sweet family and have a semi-caniption if I give them anything but chocolate. I try to avoid the tastebud downer that happens when I eat other things; but, my overindulgence is being paid for by the emotional indolence to any other flavor in sweetness. My excitement button was pushed by the flavor of blueberry grape, sparkling cider. A sweet, slightly pungent sparkling pleasure. I am not a sparkling cider critic, but if I were, I would swirl the blueish concoction in my glass and smell the "bouquet", as they call it. I was at church, so I had to behave myself with decorum. I gobbled mine down, before the toasting had been done. I was embarrassed and hoped that the other brethren hadn't noticed my obvious greedy behavior with this new flavor. Everyone else was tapping glasses with everyone else and I was looking for another cup to consume. What a greedy girl I was in 2013. As a critic, I should have taken the first mouthful in and allowed my tastebuds a second or two to be bathed in the new flavor. Because I hadn't done this, my tastebuds were yearning for another cup, but I dare not ask the Pastor if anyone was going to have those 5 or 6 full glasses that were sitting on the table. I hoped that no one else was coming in to get more of the sweet tasting cider. I did get another of cups off of the table. I don't remember if I was offered or just pilfered. By this time the curiosity of the new flavor was consumptive. I just knew that the next time that I went to the store, I would be buying blueberry grape sparkling cider for some occasion or another coming up very soon. Surprise of surprises, there was another bottle that was offered to me by one of the brethren to take home with me. What a gift! This new flavor was the first taste that I consumed upon my arising, after my toothpaste. I am a mess. I will slowly, glass by glass, figure out why this taste is so attractive to me. I guess there are other good flavors than chocolate. LOL.

Make it til Tomorrow...

God's Boys will be good boys!