Single Parents

Being a single parent presents the same challenges all parents face but you have two less hands to help. When you are raising a family by yourself you are the one getting lunches ready, giving baths, and driving to and from football practice. You can’t use the good cop/bad cop routine. You don’t ever get a break.  Many single parents work long hours or even work two jobs. You are faced with the financial and time constraints of a two-parent household with one income. Luckily, there are a few simple changes you can make that will help you support your child without adding stress to your already busy life.

Create a “home base”
For your “home base” you will need a calendar, a basket for incoming schoolwork, a spot for backpacks, and space to write. Your home base can be a corner of your kitchen, a side table in your living room, or an office. Announce this spot to your children as the hub of your home and remind them to use it as such. Use a different color pencil for each child’s activities to keep your children’s schedules straight. Encourage your children to keep track of their own activities. Designate a basket where your children can put notices that you need to see and forms you need to sign. Keeping all the forms in one place ensures you don’t miss important information. Keep pencils and pens next to the basket so you can fill out forms immediately and put them right back into your child’s backpack. Your time is valuable, and having a home base keeps you from wasting time searching all over the house for forms, notices, and assignments that need to get sent to school.

Ask for help…and return the favor
Don’t be afraid to ask a neighbor or friend for help. Most moms know that no matter what the circumstance, being a parent requires lots of juggling. Asking a neighbor to drive your child to school in the morning is fine, but be sure to return the favor and drive the kids to the school dance over the weekend. Remember- a simple thank you goes a long way. A bouquet of flowers, a gift card for a coffee shop, or a batch of cookies are inexpensive ways to show you appreciate the support you get and it has not gone unnoticed. A handwritten note to say thanks for the help does the trick, too.

Communicate with the teacher
Let her know what days or times are best for you to meet or to speak on the phone. Give her a time frame in which you intend to return her calls or notes. If you know you work late and don’t always get to her notes right away, let her know she can expect to hear from you within 48 hours. If you have a day off during the week, ask for her consideration when scheduling meetings. Being clear about communication with your child’s school leads to consistent and open interactions.

Prioritize
You can’t be in three places at once so choose the meetings, school events, and games that mean the most to you and your children. Include your children in the process by letting them choose an event they want you to attend. Be honest with your children about why you can’t be at all their events but don’t dwell on it. Refrain from constantly reminding them that you are the only parent helping out- they know this and you should vent to your friends, not your children. When they get home ask specific questions about what happened in the big game or the school play. If you want to volunteer at your child’s school but can’t be there all the time, ask if you can help stuff envelopes or make phone calls and do some of the behind-the-scenes work for events.

Remember that you are one person taking on a huge job and can only do your best each day. Pat yourself on the back for maintaining your children’s safety and security.  Give yourself credit for taking care of all the day-to-day responsibilities by yourself. Enjoy the time you get to spend with your children and stay positive- your children will model your attitude and you can be a happy and productive family together.

Jennifer Cerbasi teaches at a public school for children on the autism spectrum in New Jersey. As a coordinator of Applied Behavioral Analysis programs in the home, she works with parents to create and implement behavioral plans for their children in an environment that fosters both academic and social growth. In addition to her work both in the classroom and at home, she is also a member of the National Association of Special Education Teachers and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

i hate my job

every day i think about calling in so i can go look around for other jobs. there is just too much crap. too many changes. too many assholes there. they don’t pay me for my work. i don’t get to put my degree to good use. no one knows what the fuck is going on because the new broad that’s over everything feels like she needs to make her mark so she’s making all these decisions that affect everyone else without consulting us or even considering how it affects how we do our job. zero appreciation, zero respect. its a horrible job. being stuck in that little cubicle all damn day, not even having a window. crazy ass people to work with. i wanna cuss out a lotta people there, and i often daydream of setting the place on fire. i don’t think that’s normal. or healthy.

i have issues, i think…

No matter what - I will bless the LORD at all times

Many decisions that ought to be taken are not taken due to one of the following reasons:
1. we try to rationalize the situation assuming that our finite and limited human minds has infinite comprehension and abilities or
2. we think of the consequences of the decision and are paralyzed for fear of life or fear of being ridiculed.

In today’s text, taken from the book of Job, we will look at Job, who chose to bless the LORD at all times, NO MATTER WHAT.

Speculated to be chronologically one of the earliest books of the Bible, the book of Job tells the story of a man who loses everything, his health, his wealth and even his family, in spite of the fact that he was an upright man. His record begins with a heavenly debate between God and Satan and moves through three iterations of earthly debates between Job and his friends, in which they try to answer the question – Why; why is an upright man persecuted so gravely, that at one point, he even wishes death over his misery. In conclusion, the divine diagnosis yields the conclusion, that no matter what, the sovereignty of God is in fact unquestionable and mere acceptance of that is what God seeks of each of us. Job does indeed receive in return two times more than what he had lost (Job 42:10), but that is not the highlight of the entire account, although it may seem to be the case.  The highlight of Job’s life is his integrity and resolve to bless the LORD at all times, NO MATTER WHAT and despite him, losing his position (his servants were slain), his property (cattle taken away) and his paternity (children killed), he makes a very powerful statement; one that each of us should live each day with, which states “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away: blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21). Interestingly in parallel, Philippians 1:21 states, For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

If Job had rationalized the situation, he might have concluded that God was indeed evil, for having subjugated him under intense emotional, physical and mental turmoil, and he would have probably ended up like anyone else who cursed God and died. His act of integrity not only did it deliver him from all his troubles, but it also restored unto him twice as much as he had before, aand before he died full of days, he saw four generations. But most importantly, his act of integrity, did not let the head of God hang in shame. See God had boasted about Job to Satan and had questioned Satan, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Job’s fervency and resolve to bless the LORD at all times, helped God to hold His head high and in essence, it would not be far fetched to say that a befitting conclusion to the life account of Job, is reflective of this testimony that God had of Job – there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?. Can this be said of us?

Points to ponder:

1. Are we blessing the LORD at all times?
2. What is God’s testimony of you/me today and what will it be when your/my life is over (hopefully full of days as was Job)?
3. Can we have the heart of Job, one of integrity, that will bless the LORD at all times, NO MATTER WHAT?

We are hiring

The Normann Copenhagen salesteam is looking for an additional member to service our retail and contract partners in selected markets, mainly Europe.

You know and understand the world of design

• You can SELL and have the results to prove it.
• You understand and define excellent customer service
• You will work with our existing partner and find additional ones.
• You master a pc and surf the web with ease.
• Your suitcase can handle about 100 days of traveling
• You get inspired by looking at our website and blog
• You base will be our HQ in Copenhagen.

You must speak the Scandinavian languages and English as a must – if you can perform in Dutch, French it would be a benefit too.

Want to learn more about us?
Learn more about our products – visit our homepage
Learn how we “talk” – read this blog
See how we present ourselves at tradeshows around the world
Watch us, our designers, friends and much more on Youtube
Listen in on our Twitter or Facebook channels

Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact Sales Manager Peter Husted.

How to apply.
Send a email to Peter Husted: ph(at)normann-copenhagen(dot)com. Want to do it differently? – as long as it works, its fine with us.

Not interested?
No problem, but maybe you know a friend that would be the perfect candidate. Please tell him or her ASAP.

Simon Karkov the designer of the product that started it all, the Norm 69 lamp.

42. No Escape

Meditations in Job : 42.  No Escape

Job 16:6 Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away

Within the various ‘speeches’ in the book of Job, we find various themes or refrains being repeated. It’s a big book with many words, so it is indeed helpful to be reminded from time to time the same things. Job has just been expressing what he feels about his friends but now he moves on to express again something of the sense of hopelessness that he feels, locked in to what is happening to him, unable to do anything about it.

This sense of helplessness is common to sinful mankind living in this fallen world. In its simplest form we find it when we go to the doctor and he tells us that we have ‘a virus’ and so all we can do is go away and rest. We can’t just get rid of it. We may try and suppress the common cold, but we are stuck with it until it works its way out. We break an arm, say, and we are stuck with a plaster caste until it heals up, and that takes weeks! We give way to some wrong act and are caught. Now there is the process of law which grinds on. We wish we could turn back the clock so that it had never happened but we can’t and so we are stuck with it. Then there are the prisons of living in a deteriorating body or a body that just doesn’t function fully or properly. There are the prisons of addiction and we wish we had never started down this path, but now we are trapped in this prison. Or there is the prison of simple poverty or debt and we can see no way out. As we look on these things, we realise that, humanly speaking, there seems no way out.

Job clearly felt like this.  “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.” (v.6). Whatever he says does nothing to relieve him of his pain and if he stays quiet, it is still there. He feels utterly exhausted and there is nothing he can do to change it: “Surely, O God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.” (v.7). It has affected the whole of his life and so there is nowhere to turn for respite. How terrible it is when families are split up and you find yourself in devastating circumstances when you really need the comfort of the family, but there is no one there for you! How many children in the West today are with only one parent and feel bereft when the trials of life hit and they long for the other one to be there for them.

He declares this is the work of God, which in some senses makes it worse for there is no escape from His divine, sovereign will: “You have bound me–and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.” (v.8) You have bound me! This is no accident of life; this is a sovereign work of God. Bound? Tied up in this situation so there is no escape. It has become a witness? The fact that he is locked into this position of suffering, unable to do anything about it, suggests that all it not right in his life. His friends suggest it is because of sin.  My gauntness rises up and testifies against me! His obvious appearance speaks volumes.

He continues: “God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.” (v.9) He feels that God is angry with him and is tearing him to shreds, and is glaring at him. The result of the Lord’s activity, he says, is that, “Men open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.” (v.10) He is a laughing stock, he says, and everyone says the same thing.  He is sure that this is God’s work: “God has turned me over to evil men and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.” (v.11) When God moves it has practical outworkings in our everyday lives. God has given Job over to others it appears. He further describes what he feels: “All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.” (v.12-14) His life had been fine until God moved against him and like a wrestler threw him down, or like an archer pierced him with many arrows. It seems like He comes at him again and again in a whole variety of ways.

Now this is certainly not the most enlightening of Scripture but it does reveal the sense of awful, almost fatalistic, inability to escape from these apparent attacks from the enemy. This suffering of Job is not merely like having a headache; he is covered with sores, you may remember, is in immense discomfort and pain, looks terrible and is the scorn of all who pass by and see him. It is a reminder to those of us who may have friends who are going through hard times, not expect them to “snap out of it”. It is quite likely that they just can’t do that! They feel totally unable and whatever victorious viewpoint we have arrived at in our Christian lives, THEY may not be in the same place, so ‘praising the Lord’ or whatever other medicine you use, may be just be outside their reach at the moment; later on they may be ready to receive help and climb out of the slough of despair, but for this moment, they may be stuck there and just need your comforting presence.

I like the story I once heard on a well known TV series in the past: a man was walking down the street at dusk when he fell into a very deep hole left by the road workers. He cried out for help but there was no one there. A little time passed and he heard footsteps. A doctor arrived and peered down at him. He scribbled on a small pad and threw down a prescription and walked off. The man felt utterly alone. Just then he heard more footsteps and a Rabbi peered over the edge of the hole. “Rabbi, pleased help pull me out of the hole,” the man cried. “My son, the hole is too deep,” the Rabbi replied, “I will go away and pray for you.” And with that he left. Time passed and he heard more footsteps. To his delight, when he looked up the man saw his friend, Joe, peering down. “Joe, help me out,” the man cried. Suddenly the opening of the hole was darkened as Joe jumped in. “Joe, what are you doing? Now we’re both down here?” the man asked. “It’s all right,” said Joe, “I’ve been down here before. I know how to get out.”

It’s not smart or even critical words we need when we’re ‘in a hole’, it’s loving friendship, that understands and accepts. If only Job had received that!

16 days

I have 16 days left at the job. At the end of this month, I will officially be unemployed and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that I will not land another job. I am stuck with a half complete revamp of my resume, a dwindling self esteem and a whole bunch of questions.
This week’s highlight: my boss, a.k.a. The Jackass, took the rest of the office out to lunch … To check out a coffee shop that I recommended for an event… That a co-worker thought of. So I took a two hour lunch.
And worked on my resume.

THE GRACIOUS VERDICT

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  John 3:17-21

Desiring to be in the Light

Did you catch that last part – the part about those who desire to and actually come into the light?  How awesome is it to see a heart truly transformed for God’s glory?  There’s no faking it.  There are no traditional or cultural reasons why they do it.  They simply do it because they desire to be right with God.  They love His Son and don’t claim to be in love with Him.  This person is the one who doesn’t have a walk that looks different from their talk.  I admit that I have been the opposite of this person in my past, thinking that I was right with the Lord, but honestly my heart was far from Him.  To believe that Jesus is who He says is different from truly believe in Him.   How so? 

There are many who already believe that God exists, and even more that believe He that Jesus existed, but they don’t believe in Him.  Man!!  Even the demons do that (James 2:19).  But these people don’t plan on giving their life to Him for Him to do as He pleases.  They don’t desire to have everything wrecked that they’ve worked so hard to build (their current life).  They only want Him to be involved when times are tight and when things are great and their greed wants more prosperity in what they already have.  No, these people simply believe, but fear their evil deeds being judged, so they do as Jesus said.  They will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. v. 21 

The one that Jesus speaks of in the passage above is one who has laid their entire life before God and said “have your way.”  This seems so hard to do when we try to comprehend it with our fleshly, finite mind, but when our heart is sincere and desiring true salvation from the Father, then our Spirit trumps our flesh and we make that true decision to “come into the light” of God.  

But here’s some encouragement for the fellow believer, the one who thinks he believes and the non-believer alike.  God has already judged sin and taken action of punishment on His one and only Son.  What that means for each of us is that we have the opportunity to come before God without fear that we will be condemned to “fire and brimstone” because of our wickedness.  In fact, just the opposite happens.  When we realize who God is and what His Son has done for us, then we can make the decision in our hearts to surrender our lives to God, repent of all our sin, and receive the free gift of forgiveness due to Jesus’ sacrifice!  How awesome is that?  This decision is more important than any other you will ever make in life.  It’s bigger than deciding to get married, or whether or not to have the baby at the risk of the mother’s life, or even ending life support for that loved one who you can’t seem to depart with.  Yeah…it’s that big.  It’s eternity!!  It’s awesome and shouldn’t be taken lightly or made on a whim.  You have the same opportunity that I had.

I remember the day I said the “sinner’s prayer,” but it wasn’t the same day that I gave my life to Christ.  No, that happened when I realized what I’m sharing with you now.  Evaluate your life and know for yourself where you stand with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. 

NOTE: It’s not often that I get a post on here that is all about lubby-dubby grace from God and zen-like love, but I wanted to provide my fellow believer’s in Christ who have a hard time reading postings of judgment and rebuke.  However, let me say that if you are a person who is all about trying to lead people to Christ by only talking about how he was “nice” and “loving,” you’ve done everyone a disservice.  John 3:16, itself, is about the entire wrath of God that we deserve being placed on His Son for our many sins.  That’s brutal!!  Get it right!  Man, I almost made without any correcting.