The Magic of Read Alouds

For those of you who don't know Timothy Razinski let me just save you some time. He's the guru on Read Alouds. What does Read Aloud mean? Simply this: Reading aloud to your children.  He has done oodles of research on the benefits of reading aloud to your kids. Let me just give you a few things he says about doing read alouds:

~Reading aloud to your children gives them positive affective feelings about reading in general that will help them WANT to read later in school when they have to.

~Read alouds provide hours of pre-literacy exposure to kids where they will absorb all kinds of background information on all sorts of topics, that will help them come to school with a much larger schema.

~Listening to a fluent reader (i.e. You) read a text that might otherwise be too challenging for them in terms of syntax, vocubulary and phrasing, makes a challenging text accessible and enjoyable to struggling or reluctant readers.

~Reading a book aloud to them that is required reading for school, at least the first few chapters, helps them get over the hump of getting started and helps them get hooked on the world of the novel.

~Reading aloud to your children means you are modeling the joy and importance of reading and being a life long reader.

~Reading aloud to your children means you are exposing them to books that you know and feel are important for them to read. It gives you partnership and involvement in their learning experience.

~Reading aloud to your reluctant reader is the only way to get them interested in reading independently on their own.

When I taught reading to inner city kids in Houston, and I started doing read alouds with my students, I began to feel its magic. Kids who had previously hated reading class were the first in their seats to hear me start class with the story. Kids who NEVER took home books to read started asking to take home copies of the book I would read in class. Students who had never done well in reading before started taking a new interest in books. It works. It really does. Every time with every kid. I mean it. If you aren't reading aloud to your kids, you are missing out and so are they. And I have lots of ideas on books so reach out if you need some. Its not to late. My mom read to us even as teenagers on vacation and we loved it. Those are some of my best memories on road trips. Maybe that's even why I became a reading teacher...hmmm.

Appalled. Just appalled.

I just have to say it. I have to. I am APPALLED at the lack of commentary and response from Christians or anyone else for that matter about the transcript released regarding the selling of babies' body parts that was just released. We are an insane culture that celebrates babies and birth and pregnancy, but at the same time, has no regard for babies if they aren't wanted. WAIT...aren't wanted? By whom? By the long long waiting lists of couples dealing with infertility that have to wait a couple of years to get a baby?

What we are really saying is that underneath a woman's right to choose, which isn't really the issue and never has been, we are telling young women, "Yes, cave into the pressure to make this choice and make the realities of it go away. It's so much better and really it does matter more to not embarrass anyone than do the right thing." Isn't that what we are saying as a culture? Are we really validating women to say that their best option, their most empowered option is to make it go away. Let's just not lie. You know what I told women who came to the Crisis Pregnancy Center. "Listen, I don't care what your parents or your boyfriend, or husband or whoever thinks about you having this baby. What do you think? What decision can YOU live with because this decision is one you live with. " And I didn't make one dime off that advice. Not one. I was there for free so that girls who were scared of their boyfriends didn't let them make the decision for them.

If this recent article exposes nothing else it should clarify one thing: There is no counseling going on at Planned Parenthood regarding abortion. It is sales, people. Sales. They make money on a yes. So this whole jargon about supporting women's rights in making a decision is a bunch of garbage. Let me see some counseling that says here are ALL your options and by the way, let's be clear on one thing: This is a decision you will live with, either way. That is just a beginning of a support of women's rights. Full information, empowerment to choose either way, and clear honest straight talk about the reality that a procedure will never make her decision less of a decision she lives with, along with clearly stated information about risks of the procedure. That's treating women like people and not like potential clients. The bottom line is that the terms pro-choice and women's rights is marketing jargon pure and simple. To make women feel that by choosing this procedure they were being empowered. Most successful ad campaign of the century I think. And sadly we fell for it. Roe v. Wade should have been one decision for one woman in one situation. That's what the judicial branch does. Apply to a particular case the laws written by congress. That's not what happened. And no one cares. Case law isn't in the constitution, but I digress.

And this isn't even the most important issue here. That's not even considering the most important issue of the value of human life. The fact that if there is a mystery about human life and when it begins, we respect the guardrail of the womb and don't recklessly careen as close to the edge as possible hoping we are not going to fall off a moral cliff. The reality of the debate surrounding when human life begins really reveals the heart of what human legalism strives for: How much can I get away with? Wrong question. Wrong motive, wrong perspective. But we don't care. Because we are empowered. And after all, Planned Parenthood would say, we aren't doing anything wrong, we are just recycling what mothers don't want. We are putting it to good use. If that doesn't make you sick, we as a society are past hope. All of us. Have we just decided as a society that such issues are just too unpleasant to comment on? If this doesn't provoke moral outrage from society, we might as well round people up in carts and take them to the arena. Oh wait, we already are. Come quickly Lord Jesus.

Why God Doesn't Explain

I've just started a new bible study on Job. Its one of those books I've always had really mixed feelings about studying, just like the book of Revelation. Maybe that sounds terrible to some people, but its truly how I feel if I'm totally honest. Perhaps its because it evokes deep fears in me about when I'm going to go through my Job season. If I'm going to go through a Job season. Perhaps because I really identify most times with Job's friend's perspective more than I want to admit. I think I do hope that fearing God and turning away from evil will allow me to avert disaster in my life.

But one of the questions that has always haunted me in studying this book is "Why didn't God tell Job why all this was happening?" Its one of those questions that really bothers me because none of the commentaries ask it. Perhaps it seems too irreverent or too obvious but its the obvious questions that needs to be answered. God's answer to Job is only about Himself. It has nothing to do with Job or with what Job has done or about God's conversation with Satan. It is all about what God knows and what He has done. It doesn't really seem to answer Job's question or ours.

Today though reading chapter one again I had a bit of a breakthrough.  I realized that the question is answered in why God told Satan about Job. Up until today I have always thought that God brought Job to Satan's attention because Satan doesn't believe in love or trust. He doesn't get it. And that why God points out Job. But today I had a new thought: God triggers this event by pressing his enemies' obvious button, not for Satan's benefit but for Job's. In allowing the enemy to go after all the things that appear to be his life, he truly discovers what his life is truly found in.

But the other thing that was clear to me today was that the reason God didn't bring up His discussion with Satan to Job is that it actually wasn't relevant. Because God really wants Job to see what He already knew. He wasn't making Job simply a pawn. Yes He was using Job to shine the truth of His love through him, but he wasn't a pawn.  He was working out the same principle Paul tells us in Romans 8:28: That God causes ALL things to work together for those who love Him, for those who are the called according to His purpose. He wanted Job to know that He was Job's anchor. Job's everything. But Job couldn't fully know that until it was all gone. All stripped away. The chapters that God spends asking Job if He knows the ways of creation and the threshold of wisdom is because He is wanting to remind Job of one true fact. The only fact that truly matters in this life: God is greater. Greater than our lives, our defeats, our sin, our suffering, our loss, our grief, our despair. He is greater. And realizing that He can be our everything in the face of nothing, in the face of an absolute void in our lives, He is our rock. The anchor for our soul. Because when we know this, our joy, our fulfillment, our purpose, our hope isn't fragile.

Because its Him. And even if our lives are stripped down to nothing, He is our all. He is enough. What freedom to know that our stability, our source of strength is not a fragile. It is not a thing, not rooted in a stage, in a circumstance or even an outcome, but in the person who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End.  God didn't tell Job about Satan because God wasn't using Job to show Satan something. God was using Satan to show Job something. Something that is true for all of us who call Him Savior.  He is always working in the lives of His beloved to show us this one truth: Nothing can separate us from the love of God. As Paul said, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present, nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  The gift of the voids in our lives is that in staring into them, we know that just as in Genesis 1, the Spirit of God hovers over the surface of that void. Ready to create from the deep a new thing.  And so while none of us in our flesh can truly welcome the void, we can begin to rest slowly, slowly as the knowledge of Job's encounter sinks in. In the face of any future, any loss, any unforeseeable outcome one thing is sure: God is greater.

Hope in the Darkness

Well, normally I post things that I am writing, but this post is actually going to be an audio file. I have the opportunity to teach a six week women's study at my church and as I was praying about what to teach, I felt that this lesson really needed to be presented. Its about going through the dark night of the soul. Its about finding hope in the darkness. I hope it ministers to you.

Rachel

Hope in the Darkness

A Christmas Meditation--An Excerpt from In the Shelter of the Most High

Week Seven— Giving up on Unanswered Prayers

Luke 1

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. Now while he was he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the alter of incense.

And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink strong wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord, a people prepared.

And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people….”

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. (ESV).

This is a story of lost hope. These two godly people had waited on God and prayed for years for a child. At some point, they lost hope. It was too late. The window on having babies closed and they silently held their quiet sadness like the baby they never had. The comfort between them was shared grief and a common faith in a God that they knew had been faithful to His people. Doing his daily duties gave Zechariah a kind of ritual comfort that even if he hadn’t been heard in his personal prayers, God would hear his prayers for his people.  It was a particular honor to be chosen that day to go into the holy of holies. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t really feel like going. He didn’t feel pious or worthy of that task today. But yet he had been chosen, and what an honor it was. And so with dignified solemnity he entered the holy of holies to present his sacrifice to God. 

It never entered his mind that this would be the day God would show up; The day that God would break into the narrative of his life with news that would change his world and Israel’s future at the same time. Zechariah never imagined that God’s delay was His great provision. He would never have dared to hope that the child he so longed for would be the child who would prepare the hearts of God’s people for the Messiah. He could never have guessed that the years of silence would break into an angelic announcement of a child consecrated to God from the womb.

It never occurred to Zechariah when he went to give the yearly sacrifice that God had delayed his answer to him until that moment because it was a message for all of Israel. Did he realize in the months of silent waiting, after the angel’s visitation, that maybe, just maybe, God showed up then because He was answering in a way that worked out the prayers for the one as provision for the many? Did it occur to him during his hours of mute silence that maybe the years of silence were not God’s neglect of his prayers? They were but a dramatic pause in the symphony of His grace.

And so he did what most of us would do in that situation. He doubted. Even in the presence of an angel, he doubted. The years of crying out with only a silent reply and with no reward for faithful living had hardened his heart just a little. At some point he had resigned himself to serving God, even if he had to close his heart to Him just a little to do it; even if He was a God wouldn’t condescend into his personal pain and longing. And so when the glorious news arrived, it was a little too grand, a bit too glorious, and far too hopeful to embrace with all his hope.

So God in His ironic sense of humor gave him as his confirmation--- as the sign he asked for-- the very thing that had broken his hope: silence. But this time, he knew God had spoken. And this time as he waited, slowly because of the silence, he began to hope again.

If for no other reason, this story needs to be told and retold because it reminds us of one enduring truth we must never forget: God alone is the supreme author. He answers the deepest heart of our surface prayers. He calls forth the brightest hope from the deepest darkness of our longings. The problem is, we give up on Him long before He has finished His work in us. We write Him off long before He has written our ending. He is far more patient in crafting the beauty of our lives than we are in imagining it.

We read the Scriptures simply for this: we must see more clearly this God that we serve in all His compassionate beauty. We must be reminded in the midst of our story that God shows up sometimes long after our hopes have grown cold. And He gets to. I am not the director of His movie, and I forget that, when I use my prayers to give Him His cue to enter stage left. 

Oh to let the beauty of Scripture sink in so that when I enter into prayer again, I enter with quiet surrendered hope. Not hope because I know when He will enter, or how He will enter; But with deep conviction that He will. And when He does, the gloriousness of His appearing will leave me speechless just like Zechariah.

Oh Father, may we surrender with deep assurance our deepest desires to you,, knowing that your mercy reaches to the skies. May we learn to trust when the silence falls for way too long, that it is ever only a pause in your attentive answer to us.  May we fall with frail hope upon the grace that you pour out upon us daily. Grace that gives us wings to soar when we are weary even of our hopes. Let us like Zechariah finally offer our faith onto the altar of patient waiting that we might see once again, Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable His ways! I surrender all to your far better, far more glorious plan, this day, O Christ. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.  (Romans 11: 33-36) (ESV).