Shannon Yee

Being on vacation and with family away from home for several weeks in the past two months has been exhausting. It has also been more fun than I can express, but apparently I am truly an introvert and refresh by being alone. I have always known this, but often doubt because I love hanging out with my family and close friends so much.

Having two little ones who are not living according to the “normal” routine and being with people all the time was an adventure – tiring and fabulous all in one.

I am very thankful to be home and getting settled back into whatever normal is. I just wish it didn’t involve so much laundry, dishes, and whining (from me or the kids!)…

This is the kind of faith that just accepts things because without really needing lots of intellectual reasoning or good logic or tangible proofs – or so they say.

My child does not have this kind of faith. She often tells me that God is not here and can’t help us because she can’t see him. Eyes peering all around, she cannot find him anywhere, so he can’t be here with us.

Yet, she is currently laying her bed singing “Father, I adore you and I lay my life before you. How I love you.” It is a beautiful, calm, soothing song that we often sing before bed, so just a lullaby…

This is something that I really struggle with in parenting (along with so many other things): wanting to control how my kids turn out. I know in my head that the choices they will make as they get older will definitely be influenced by Brian and I, but we really have little say in how they will ultimately live their lives. I struggle with not making one of my main goals in parenting to raise kids that love God. I can live as an example, but I cannot make it a goal for them to feel a certain way… Instead, one of my goals is for them to know God’s love for them. Although, I pray that both of these things will take place in their lives!

The verses that I pray over them regularly are: Philippians 1:9-11 9And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. and Ephesians 3:16-19 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

(The Ephesians passage is also part of the theme of Adventures in Mothering for MOPS for this coming year, which I am really excited about. And as a side note, if you are free on Friday mornings this fall/winter, we’d love for you to join our group if you are pregnant or have a child who is in Kindergarten or younger or as a MOPPETS worker with the kids!)

Summer is pretty much here. It is humid with thunderstorms in the afternoons and trips to the park in the mornings. I’m able to hang my laundry outside and it actually dries (and quickly too!) and Josiah points out bugs everywhere. These are the signs of summer.

I love summer and being hot, spending countless hours in the outdoors, eating picnics and I especially love vacations. Summer is the time for vacations in my mind. This summer we have several family trips planned. At the end of June, we will venture out into the tent camping world again with several of our friends who also have young ones. We would like to have celebrate another Christmas (minus presents and cold) sometime in July and spend a night at the waterpark and eat a good German chicken dinner – the Kralys may join us, which would be very fun. We’ll be joining Brian’s extended family for a few days in a condo near the lake at the end of July. In the middle of August, my extended family will be spending a week on a different lake. The crazy thing is that with all this fun and travel, we won’t even leave our beloved state. Maybe one day we will again travel to distant lands and places never before seen (by us).

The other thing I love about summer is the long days. It feels like I’m able to do so much more and be more productive. One of the things that I’ll be spending a lot of time on is MOPS. If you have any great ideas for the Adventure of Motherhood, which is our theme for next year, let me know…

I’m finally following up the rest of my thoughts on disciplining, and these are my findings so far, based on my flawed usage and my kids.

What works (in my order of preference and use):
GBD 5 Steps
Love & Logic, Conscious Discipline 1 and Conscious Discipline 2 (Choices with natural or logical consequences)
Giving Time to Adjust to Change

What doesn’t work:
Telling them what to do and then punishing (time outs, loss of priviledges)
Yelling
Asking them to do something and telling the consequence of not complying – Eila will almost always choose the consequence no matter what it is!

I’ve found that having too many rules or too much info, doesn’t work, but Eila needs to know what to expect and what’s coming up. Josiah is starting to want that as well, as he gets to the point where he can understand that there are some things he can do and some things he cannot do.

Yee House Rules:
Treat others with love and respect. (We do not hit or push or kick other people at any time for any reason.)
Listen and obey.
When we’re done playing, we clean-up.
We go to our room when we can’t behave appropriately.
No climbing on moving things (like ride-on trucks) or big furniture (like dressers or tables).
No eating or wearing shoes (princess shoes included) while jumping. (This rule changes with the season – it was previously: Only throw soft balls.)
Only play on the computer with Mama or Papa.
Ask before you take (especially for food, but also applies to toys & taking turns).

There are always consequences for not following the rules. The most common one is no more jumping. Followed closely by “We can play with that after we clean up this.”

Finally, the most important rules (which are the silly rules):
No Smiling.
No Laughing.
No Having Fun.

As our kids get a little older, I’d like to implement “Our 24 Family Ways” from the Clarkson family, which I discovered in the back of Sally Clarkson’s The Mission of Motherhood.

So, for some real life examples, you’ll have to await another day.

I have a tendency to be a bit ambitious, to bite off more than I can chew, to think that it won’t be *that* much work, and to consequently be disappointed and miserable. I am not an optimist as you might presume given my overly optimistic predictions of what can be done in an hour, day, week or even year. Rather, I am just foolish or in denial about how things really work. I want to be able to do all the things on my list and have my husband do all the of the things on my “Honey Do” list, so I try to wish it into reality.

While I was at the Hearts at Home conference, one of the speakers said that your misery factor is the ratio of your expectations to reality. If your expectations are unrealistic, you are bound to be very miserable. On the other hand, when you have hopes that are plausible, you have a real chance of being successful and feeling great! Unfortunately, I cannot seem to grasp what realistic expectations look like.

I have written down a list of what I wanted to do during Brian’s break from work over Christmas and while my family is in town. It is a little longer than I thought is was and I’m already disappointed because I am realizing that most of it probably won’t get done. Yet, I am looking forward to crossing things off this list and seeing how much gets accomplished in the end – and secretly hoping that it all gets done. Maybe I’m ambitious, but that is a good thing, right?

I have a lot of responsibilities. We all do. Almost all of my responsibilities are things that I “signed up” or “volunteered” for, but some are not, which doesn’t make them any less necessary. The ones I “chose” include: being a wife, mom, MOPS coordinator, preschool teacher, friend. The ones I didn’t exactly pick include: being a child, housekeeper, cook, errand runner/shopper, and almost all the ones listed under things I chose… Insane time commitments, messiness, humility, and sacrifice are parts of every responsibility that I have – that make it challenging and often make me want to quit or give up.

Fortunately, there are also great rewards that come with every responsibility. Cleanliness, love, joy, seeing God’s glory and being a part of His work, as well as being able to survive are just a few of the benefits of fulfilling my responsibilities. Best of all is the growth and change in me as I live up to the responsibilities that I have and see God’s hand shaping me as a result of the sacrifices and humility and messiness in it all. It is amazing that just doing what I’m supposed to do can have such positive results personally, but also for everyone around me as well!

I don’t know why this is so difficult, but planning a vacation is something that stresses me out to the max. I am starting to believe that it might have to do with a deeper issue (don’t stressors always have a trigger?), like wanting to please those I love the most and who will be in close quarters with me during this vacation. But, then again, I think it could just be my OCD/perfectionist craziness. I want my vacations to be perfect – to see all there is to see, to eat well all the time, to sleep well and most of all to have a fabulous time doing whatever I want to do. In order for the vacation to be perfect there is a lot of planning involved. I need to research every possible thing to see or do and find the best possible place to stay and dining options while considering the budget and what will work for our family. I think this is also complicated by the fact that my beloved mate doesn’t have much to say usually, but for vacations offers his opinion and so I want to take that into consideration and make his trip perfect too. I have usually have lots of opinions, so this is no exception. But, when visiting a new place, I fear making a wrong choice and screwing it up for everyone. Failure: my biggest fear! Mixing fear of failing and fear of letting others down – I’m afraid that I might be believing a lie – this is recipe for disaster. The truth is that my self-worth is not based on my performance and other’s opinions of me, but on Christ and His work on the cross. Thank God that He is God and I am NOT!

It seems like I’m stuck in the same old struggles day in and day out.

I’m a part of several groups where we share prayer requests (and I assume these women are praying for me, as I am for them), but I always feel like I have the same request. Namely, I want to seek God first. Some days this request looks different than other days, but for the most part it’s the same root issue (Pride, Idolatry, Unbelief – call it what you may.) My request might be for better communication with my husband, for more patience with my kids, for more discipline in studying the Bible or prayer, for balance in the activities or events of each day, for time management, for wisdom, for sleep. I try to vary the requests so that I don’t feel like it’s always the same and so that I don’t bore those praying for me. But, more so because I feel like it *should* be different.

Why do I have this expectation that my prayer requests should change? I think it’s because I believe that God answers prayer and if I keep asking for the same thing over and over without any change then that means there hasn’t been an answer. If there is no answer, then everything I believe and live for comes into question. Now, I’m not about to ditch my faith because this one request – that I seek God first – isn’t answered as I think it should be, but it just shows my lack of faith in that I’m afraid to even think about the implications of this “unanswered” prayer request.

The ironic thing about this whole discussion (that I’m having with myself…) is that my request for seeking God first is something that lies within me to fix/do. I don’t need God to answer this request at all. I need to act, knowing that He chose me and sought me out, so it should be my reaction to love Him in return and seek to please Him, with gratitude for all that He has done for me. I will probably keep the same old prayer request and keep trying to phrase it differently depending on my struggle in that moment living according to the graciousness of God. And perhaps, I’ll act as if it’s already been answered, which it has.

I often wonder how many times I’ve missed the boat with regards to great gifts or exciting adventures God had ready for me, but I ignored or chose to go the other way…

My sister and I were talking about this not too long ago as she was sharing that she had just finished a study on the life of Aaron (old testament priest) and that he didn’t listen and obey God at first, but then later tried to do what God had said before – but things were different then.

I know a family who recently went through the process of adopting a precious baby, they were seeking God and yet not everyone was at the same point at the same time. At one point the father was ready and at another point they were both ready, but there were problems with the logistics (ie. God’s wasn’t ready or the child wasn’t ready?), and then finally everything fell perfectly into place – because the whole family was on the same page as God and ready to listen and obey when and what He said, possibly.

I feel like the same thing has been happening with Brian and I. When we were engaged we talked about how we thought that God was calling us to go at some later point, possibly 5-10 years down the road, to be missionaries full-time. France has long been in our minds as a great place to go and minister, but by no means the only choice for us. Not too long ago, I was fully ready to go and after talking with our pastor and praying, we started to contact some missions agencies and missionaries in France. Well, there are lots of open doors and opportunities, but Brian seemed really hesitant and even disagreeable when we would talk and pray about it. So, we were obviously not on the same page. I don’t know what page exactly God was/is on, but sometimes I wonder if Brian and I are even in the same book. Was I jumping the gun for whatever reason? Was Brian dragging his feet? It seemed very clear to me though that God was not asking us to go when we were not both ready. Did we miss the boat? I don’t know. I certainly hope not.

On the other side, I’ve been the recipient of amazing gifts when I least expected it and know others who have been too. In fact, this past week I heard two stories in my family of God’s faithfulness. My dad, Bill, was driving on the freeway and was hit by some drywall that fell from a truck. His car had some bad damage, but he walked away without a scratch. As a testimony of God’s protection, my mother found a nickel (when she finds pennies, she uses them as reminders and thanks God for the small ways he protects us each day) on her walk and knew God was working in big ways that day! Then, another sister of mine and her four kids applied to attend (at a very discounted rate) a local Christian school and they were accepted and the teachers and administrators were excited about working with their newest daughter, who is from Zambia and is still learning English and may be a little behind in some academic areas. It was a true answer to prayer – they got on the cruise ship!

God’s timing is always right. As the Gentile father in Mark 9:24 asking Jesus to heal his son cried out “I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!”

I used to think that I was a balanced person who knew when to say no, even if I didn’t always know how to do so in the best way. But now, I am feeling very over-committed and am not sure how I got this way. What’s more I have still more things that I’d like to be involved in and yet know that I really cannot do anything else.

A wise woman (my mom) recently chided me that it’s better to do one thing well than to do a million things. That gentle reminder has been haunting me as I have been praying over and deciding what and how to do everything. There are lots of areas of life that I am passionate about and even more that I’m interested in and even more that I like might be cool. Some of these include: almost anything my husband cares deeply about or is pursuing for the moment (photography, music, astronomy & space travel, but not computer games), mothering and helping mothers, discipleship, language learning and teaching, breastfeeding, scripture study and memorization, being healthy – exercise and food, and especially building relationships with family and friends.

I can’t do everything, but I want to. It seems like the trick is to figure out how to make as many of my interests overlap as possibly, so that I can do it all. Really, I think the trick is being content with what God has for me right now and not running ahead or lagging behind him. I really am like a toddler in *so* many ways. If only I could master that favorite word of toddlers! Hee hee.

Of course, there are some things, I have no trouble saying no to, but those are probably the things I should be saying yes to!