You Go. I’ll take care of this., part II

To find that message that goes beyond “don’t worry, be happy,” we need to look at the passage in its larger context, as coming within Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus did not deliver this Sermon on the Mount to the masses. Sometimes Jesus spoke to every Tom, Dick, and Sally. But in Matthew’s rendering of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking to his disciples. He has just recently called them to himself. Some crowds got to following him, but in this instance Jesus heads up the mountain and addresses his disciples directly. He is not talking to the crowds now, he is talking to his disciples, those who have already given everything up to follow him. He is telling them how to be his disciples, his students. Jesus is forming them as a unit, he is giving them an identity, describing a way of being that will set them apart from—even in opposition to—everyone else in their community. He is giving them a how-to lesson on being his disciples. Maybe that’s why the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t make sense outside of the church. Jesus isn’t talking to the multitudes here, he’s talking to those he’s called to himself, the ones he will later (in chapter 10) send out to proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” And he’s talking to us. His 21st Century disciples. We are the ones he is calling to himself. We are the ones he’s sending out into the world today.

The Good News of the Gospel is not just for you and for me and for our psychological well-being. The Good News of the Gospel is the news of an entirely new Kingdom. An entirely new way of being. It is the ushering in of a whole new creation. Not just for you and me, but for the world. And our part in it, as the Church, is not simply to feel better about facing tomorrow. It’s not even about just helping others feel better about tomorrow. It is about participating with the God of the universe as he creates anew his glorious Kingdom. The start of the rebuilding project was his sending his Son, Jesus Christ. Our savior lived, died, defeated death, and rose again to usher in the New Age, the coming of God’s eternal kingdom, and he has called us, those who call him Lord, along for the ride. The continuation of God’s project, his mission, is his Son’s sending of us, to further that kingdom, to serve that kingdom with all that we have and all that we are. To embody that kingdom, to carry the blueprint around with us, to serve as hammers and nails, lumber and masonry, as he builds his Kingdom with us. All while we await the consummation of the building project with the return of God’s Son.

The Bible as a whole is our how-to manual. How to carry the blue-print, how to serve the project, how to be sent. How to be the tools God uses to build his kingdom. The Bible is the manual that forms us all as God’s mission team.

I lift my eyes up . . .

¹I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
²My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
³He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
⁶The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
⁷The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
⁸The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.

I’ve had a lot going on lately.  Specifically, had a crazy couple of weeks back in the middle of September. On September 14^th, I received a call from my mother. She and my father had just returned from an appointment with my father’s neurologist.

Back in the early spring, my 63 year old father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. This was a hefty blow to the former Marine Master Sgt., and a Teamster who made his living carrying refrigerators around. It was also a mighty blow to the three women of his life: his wife of 41 years and his two grown daughters. Visions of watching this strong, proud man who had worked so hard, so well, his whole life—beginning at the age of 12—physically weaken and deteriorate before our eyes began creeping in from the deep, dark corners of our minds.

This was not how it was supposed to be. We had all grown convinced of an entirely different scenario for his death. His own father, along with his father’s brother, had died of sudden heart attacks at the tender age of 42. Their sister also had her first heart attack at 42, however it wasn’t until suffering her second at 54 that she joined her brothers in early death. Losing his father when he was twelve and a most beloved uncle when he was 16 left my father with an immense appreciation for life. He never took a moment for granted, and began counting every year past age 42 as an especially precious gift.

The other side of that coin was that, as a family, we all assumed that my father, like his father before him, would be cut down swiftly and in the prime of his life. That image, that fear, truly was a driving force in our life.

But. But then came the diagnosis in the spring: Parkinson’s. And our vision of my father being struck down suddenly, in all of his strength, were replaced with shadows of deterioration and longterm care. Devastating. And certainly bad enough.

Now. Back to September 14^th. . . . During this, my father’s second visit with the neurologist, issues beyond my father’s tremors were raised. Behavioral changes, cognitive changes—changes we had attributed to something else—changes observable to the neurologist, put something new on his radar screen: dementia. Specifically, Lewy Body dementia.

Suddenly our vision for my father’s last years shifted yet again. Instead of a strong body failing and deteriorating, we now imagine my father’s mind failing, growing incapable of speech, of even recognizing me or my sister or the woman he’s loved since he was 17 or even his 5 grandchildren.

The thing is, I don’t have to work very hard to imagine the realities of dementia. My 64 year old father-in-law is in the later stages of his own bout with dementia. Diagnosed nearly seven years ago with a form of dementia called Frontotemporal Dementia (or FTD)–go ahead, do the math . . . that’s right, he was 57 when he was diagnosed—the dementia’s effects on him are profound. And heartbreaking.

When I heard of my father’s possible diagnosis of dementia, Ry and I were actually waiting to hear details on his step-mother’s trip to visit her brother on the other side of the country. Feeling a deep need to visit her ailing brother, my step-mother-in-law reluctantly asked if we could go and care for my father-in-law while she left town for 5 days. We were happy to oblige. Our plans were confirmed midweek: we would leave Sunday to spend the week with my father-in-law.

Ry and I slogged through that week: spending extra time with my mother and sister—all of us reeling from my father’s new diagnosis—making arrangements with the school to get work for my 2^nd grader to do while we were out of town for a week, both of us preparing sermons for Sunday morning in two different pulpits. Too late to arrange for pulpit supply for Ry, and with me as the pulpit supply at another church, we decided to head south after we all returned home from church on Sunday and packed up the minivan with all our stuff and three kids. We began the 530 mile trip at 3:30 in the afternoon and arrived at my in-law’s at 2:30 in the morning. Ry’s step-mother left home at 10 the next morning, and on two to three hours of sleep for each of us, Ry and I hit the ground running.

Our week consisted of a whole lot of care-taking, lots and lots of dishes, and what seemed to be a continual parade of meals and snacks and drinks. And our week was filled with amazing blessing as we were able to express our love for my father-in-law in real and tangible ways, and watch our children learn by example our family’s expectation for loving one another.

However. I’ll be honest. Our week was exhausting. And our week was overwhelming. And because the days following my own father’s diagnosis were spent in that flurry of activity, I hadn’t time to stop and really think things through, to really process it. Still the news was weighing on me, and somewhere around mid-week, on a morning after both my father-in-law and our youngest had a bad night’s sleep, I hit a wall.

On Wednesday morning, I had a few quiet moments to myself in the only place a mom can have in her own home, provided the room has a room that locks: the shower. In the quiet, I reflected on my week. I had spent the week caring for my father-in-law, loving on him, his face with only glimmers of expression, his brown eyes only occasionally finding my own in any meaningful way, sometimes confused, often simply staring to space. These images of him raced through my mind, but then before I knew what was happening, the images changed. My father-in-law’s brown eyes were replaced by the clear blue eyes of my father, the expressionless face grew broader, fairer. My mind continued down the path of foreseeing. Thoughts of how I would explain to my children how the brain of their other grandfather now has something wrong with it. I wondered if they would begin to consider this brain deterioration as simply the way the world works and then would begin to worry about their own father’s brain or even their own. I began to wonder how my mother with her own health concerns would be able to care for my father and I realized she would need a great deal of help from my sister and me. I started to think about how after seven years it seemed I was finally putting that Master’s of Divinity to work, serving churches, but how would I balance that now? Throughout my thoughts of all the ways my life would be affected by my father’s future, my father’s face, superimposed over my father-in-law’s condition, continued to come in and out of focus before my mind.

My mind was whirling, buzzing, with all of what would be required of my family in the coming years, while at the same time feeling intensely the heart-wrenching burden of my father-in-law’s condition. Aching for him, and for his wife and for my husband. Knowing that the end is in sight, realizing the huge hole that will open up in our lives without him in it. And my heart ached for my father, for the things he’d have to go through before he lost awareness. Truly, this was not all about me.

Whirring, buzzing, spinning, turning, every which way a big, scary mess. Until finally I found myself completely overwhelmed by all that lay ahead.

And it’s at this point that I did the only thing I think anyone in those circumstances would do, can do. I cried out to God. “Lord, how am I going to get through this? How are we all going to get through this?” An image had formed in my head. A mountain. I was staring at this enormous mountain in front of me and somehow, some way, I needed to climb up and over it and pass through to the other side. “How, Lord? How am I going to get over that mountain?!”

It doesn’t happen often. I think because I don’t listen often enough, but I believe the Lord answered me. And he answered me with his very own Word.

“I lift my eyes up to the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

To be honest, I heard the verse in the form of the song I know. “I lift my eyes up. Up to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from you, maker of heaven. Creator of the earth.”

How many times had I sung that song? Countless. Countless many. Many many. With my hands raised and my eyes closed (even though I’m Presbyterian), I had envisioned a vast open space with big mountains, like the rockies—enormous, jagged, imposing mountains. Mountains that demonstrate the power of the One who made them. I envisioned God above those mountains. You know, kind of a Mt. Sinai vision: God, himself, dwelling on a high, rocky mountain. God of power. Beautiful vision, truly. I had sung the song marveling at God’s awesome power to have created such magnificent mountains and to be so beyond the scope of those magnificent mountains, that he dwells above them and beyond them. So to this point this song, this Psalm, was a song that reminded me of God’s strength and power, but in a far off sort of way. God, Big God, way above the mountains, providing help to me. A beautiful image. Truly.

But not the one that came to mind on that day I cried out to him and he answered with this Psalm. Suddenly, I saw things much differently. Suddenly the mountain was not evidence of God’s majesty, of his amazing power of creativity. Suddenly, the mountain was this overwhelming task that was set before me. In my mind I was now at the foot of one of those enormous, imposing Rockies, and my task was to scale it. And I’m no outdoors-woman. But God was assuring me I would make it over to the other side.

When I had a chance to sit down with a Bible and look at the rest of the Psalm, it came into still fuller clarity for me. It does not describe a far-off God providing help from on high. It describes a God who is my climbing partner and then some. “He will not let your foot be moved.” I trip a lot. The image of God holding onto my foot so it doesn’t slip on the graveled terrain? Wow. Suddenly I had a clear image of the ultimate hiking partner. One who would stay right by my side and compensate for any uneven terrain, keeping me on track.

“He who keeps you will not slumber.” You know this is talking about a place where critters come and eat you in the night while you sleep. But God never sleeps, so when you need rest, he keeps things going, he keeps you safe. I was assured that even in the midst of the worst moments to come, there would be time and space for my rest. I cannot keep watch at all times, but when I can’t, the Lord, who never sleeps, will keep it all in his sight and care.

“The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.” Day and night, the Lord will be there, protecting me from the elements, protecting me from the harsh realities of the journey.

“The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.” I will survive this. I will. I will not plummet to my death. I will not be buried in an avalanche or a mudslide. The Lord will keep me.

“The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.” The Lord will be here with me through it all. Wherever I go, whatever I do. In this life as well as the one to come.

Praise and thanks be to God for his Word.

Remembering . . .

I’m remembering a lot these days.  This week is a big week for remembering around here.  I wrote about it last year.  The anniversary of our first date, my birthday.  I might have more to say about that another day, but today I’m going to remember September 11th, 2001 and the days following.

First, my heart and thoughts go out to those who lost loved ones on this day eight years ago.  My heart aches for the pain that will never go away.  My heart aches for those who were present and a part of the events of that day.  For their pain, for their scars–physical and emotional–that will never fully heal, that continue to be poked and prodded on a national scale once every year.

Today, I’m remembering how we experienced 9/11 and how the events of that day were made extra surreal for us, I think, because of the circumstances under which we witnessed the event and the immediate aftermath.  I think, too, that this experience of it has had lasting repercussions.

On the morning of 9/11, Ry and I were far, far out of town, visiting good friends of ours from Ry’s college days. I can still remember hearing, over the sound of my hair-dryer, Ry and Matt coming in from a run.  I could hear just enough to hear some sort of urgency to their voices and as I turned off the dryer I heard them saying a neighbor had come up to them while they were doing pull-ups in the garage and told them that a plane had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers.  I reached the living room as they were turning on the TV.  There was still speculation that it was a Cessna, or some kind of small plane.  Speculation about what had happened to make the pilot screw up like that.  I went back to finish up my hair–must be pretty, don’t you know–and when I came back it seemed clear that it was a large plane.  I arrived back to the TV in time to watch the second plane hit.  Then we knew.  The four of us.  We knew something terrible was happening.  And we all sat down and began to watch.

I can picture the dirty breakfast dishes, with various bits of leftover waffles and strawberries on them, lining the counter.  At some point, I think, Ellen gave up on cooking up the rest of the batter.  Matt was off from work that day because we were there to visit.  So we had nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit.  And watch it all unfold before our eyes. The first tower crumbling.  Anticipating the second.  What’s that?  Something about the Pentagon, too?  What’s going to happen next?  What’s going on?

I can so vividly picture Ellen sitting and rocking her 3 month old baby.  I remember looking at her and wondering what she was thinking.  Wondering how afraid she was that the whole world was changing before our eyes and she had just brought a new person into it.  Wondering if she was fearing for her new baby.  Wondering if Ry and I should continue in our attempts to bring into this new crazy world a new baby of our own.  We spent the day glued to the TV.  We cleaned up the waffles eventually, but I honestly have no recollection of lunch or dinner that day.  I simply remember their couch.  And the TV set.

At the time, I was about to begin my senior year in seminary, Ry was in his second year of ministry in a nearby church.   Our home at the time was in Princeton, NJ.  A 60 minute train-ride from Manhattan, and a hop, skip, and a jump to DC.  Being fans of Central PA made Shanksville feel all the closer.  And there our home sat, in the middle of all that mess.  While we sat far, far away from home.  In Kentucky.  I was at the same time lonely for home and grateful not to be there.

Meanwhile, we had friends there.  We had one dear friend who we knew took the train right into the WTC every morning for work.  We had great hope that she was in and out of there and in her own building by the time the first plane hit, but we also knew sometimes things happen, trains get delayed, people have appointments.  And even beyond worrying about her physical well-being, we were worried about this sensitive woman, who was in a vulnerable emotional state at the time, witnessing up close and personal all that we were witnessing from what felt so very far away.  We prayed for her.  My, how we prayed for her.

We also have a surgeon friend who was serving at a hospital in Brooklyn.  We knew he was close.  We knew he’d be on alert.  We weren’t sure what he would have to face.  But we thought of him.  And we prayed for him.

And then we had yet another friend.  This one lived outside of DC and we knew his job took him straight to the Pentagon often.  There was no telling whether or not this day would be one of those occasions.  We thought of him.  And we worried for him.  And we prayed for him.

It was all so strange.  After having lived on the highway from Philly to NYC for nearly five years by then, the entire area felt like our home.  Our local news was NYC’s local news.  Our church community was full of people who worked in the city.  This was our home.

Yet we were so far away.  So far removed.  It was somehow harder to wrap our heads around.  And we had a feeling of hopelessness as we knew we had members of our congregation in need, members whose personal lives would be rocked by this, knowing that with all the members of our church working in Manhattan or with neighbors who did, there were bound to be some who were personally affected, not just affected in the way that all Americans were.  But we couldn’t be there.  We were on vacation.  Supposed to be enjoying ourselves.

The next day, September 12th, we packed up our bags and continued on our journey.  We listened to NPR continually.  Through hours of travel.  We toured Mammoth Cave as planned.  Hidden deep in the dark cave, below the ground, we still wondered what was going on up there.  Far above us.  Above the ground.  In the skies.  Would we emerge from the dark and dank, perpetually comfortably cool cave to find that something else had gone horribly wrong?  A few minutes of NPR as we drove to our campsite reassured us that nothing had changed, save everything that was already changed.

We spent that night in a tent.  No TV to replay the images, just our words, just our joint processing of all we had witnessed.

The following day brought more hours in the car as we drove to Asheville.  More NPR.  We wondered who this Bin Laden character was.  What was this Al Qaeda thing?  Afghanistan?  War?  Did I mention that after 6 years of working toward it, Ry had finally been commissioned as an Army Chaplain and attached to a Reserve unit just weeks before?  War.

Another surreal day in Asheville as we toured one of America’s Castles.  The Biltmore Estate was the inspiration for this whole trip, after a Saturday morning watching A&E.  So, once again, cut off from all outside communication, we traveled back in time to days of wealth and obscene spending.  What planet were we on?  Having fun, yet always in the backs of our minds:  How’s Leslie doing?  What about John?  We had no number for him in DC, we mainly talked via email.  What did Shawn have to deal with at the hospital?  My this house is really big!

A few minutes of NPR told us more of the same.  Another night in a tent.  Cut off from civilization.  Hidden away in a dark tent, under moist trees.  More quiet chatter in the night.  More processing.  Is this the kind of world we should bring a baby into?

Onward and Eastward we traveled.  Depending only on our ears to tell us what the rest of the world looked like.  Hearing stories of the devastation, hearing pleas of people looking for loved ones, hearing speeches by Mr. Powell, Mr. Bush.  Where was Mr. Chaney?  Our ears were overwhelmed, but our minds struggled to put together pictures beyond the real-time ones we saw.  The ones we saw when no one knew what was going on right before our eyes.

Yet another two nights without a TV in my in-law’s in NC.  They had no TV at the time.  We all talked about what it all could mean.

By the time we returned to our home, back to civilization, back to our TV’s, life had begun moving forward.  Nearly a week had passed.  Hope for finding living lost had dwindled.  The attention of the TV was turned toward War.  Toward retribution.  Toward reacting, responding, rebuilding.

Our eyes never saw what other eyes saw.  Our brains were not overwhelmed by images.  Somehow I think this makes a difference for how we’ve processed it all.  It’s not that we didn’t experience it.  We did.  We saw it as it happened.  But I think we came out of it less scarred than those around us who spent the week looking at the images over and over and over and over.  I’m grateful for that time.  But it also leaves me feeling disconnected from the fullness of it.  We were aliens returning from outer space.  We could only hear about the special service that took place at church on my birthday, the 16th.  We returned after the worst and most intense of the aftermath.  I don’t know what that means for us.  It just makes it different.  It makes it once-removed or something.  We don’t share the collective experience of the days that followed.  We have only the images of the events as they happened, and the images our own minds were left to make up in response to the things we were hearing.  It was simply different.

After thinking about this some more today, I had some further thoughts about our once-removed experience of 9/11.  We’ve noticed that we didn’t experience things quite as intensely as those around us.  I think I’ve always attributed it to our trip.  But I’m also now wondering if it is because we were quite literally once-removed from the whole thing.  We shared the local news with NYC, but we lived far enough from the city to not be that part of Jersey that is suburban New York.  In our ten years of living in that general vicinity I had only two trips to the city, Ry had none, and one of my trips happened during the 18 months we took a break from living there.  But my best friend grew up closer to the city, she’d been there a bunch, her nephew worked there.  Members of our church worked there.  It was part of our everyday, but once-removed.  And then this tragedy hits, and we had a pile of people we knew who knew someone who’d died.  Once-removed.  The granddaughter of Ry’s great aunt lost her husband.  Once-removed.  But just once-removed.  Close enough to feel the relief of those who’d had close calls, to see the anguish of those who’d lost someone.  Close enough to touch and see and feel the agony. But it was not our own.  We were once-removed.

Our position that close, but once-removed, was, I think, different from the experience of those further away.  I think those further away could experience the national impact of the ordeal.  Being another step further away took the whole thing away from the intensely personal, and put it into the national-identity personal.  I think our being surrounded by people who had lost so much, seeing in our local paper the lists of names of lost people, made it difficult to claim the loss as our own, to feel that sense of nationhood, of national tragedy.  The personal tragedy was too close to us, yet was not our own.  We were in the no-man’s land of a second circle.  There is the inner circle of those directly, personally affected by the event:  they were there, or they lost a loved one, or their loved one was there.  And there is the outer circle, a grieving nation.  A nation who looked at this devastating blow to their country and were rightly outraged.  And then there we were, in no-man’s land.  Once-removed.  But only once.  We were part of the tragedy, but we weren’t.

I’m not sure that makes as much sense in words on the screen as it does in my head.  Anyway . . .

Along the way of our travels, we had learned that our friend Leslie was unharmed in the attack, that she was part of the mass exodus-by-foot out of the city that day.  She emerged from the rubble miraculously stronger, healthier.  When we came home we learned that John, thankfully, was not at the Pentagon that day, but I often wonder about the lasting impact of that close call.  And Shawn and his hospital colleagues were left with empty gurneys.  The anticipated rush of  injured survivors never came.  Because there was no rush.  There were so few.  And all of those people so ready to save lives had to recover from the reality of having no lives to save.

Horrific.  The whole thing was horrific.  It haunts me still.  And certainly our lives have changed in its wake.  Ry spent 18 months mobilized and serving soldiers on their way to and from Iraq and Afghanistan.  And he may be about to go back to serving soldiers again, as a National Guard chaplain.

And in the midst of all that. . . . in the midst of the world as we knew it crumbling down around us . . . we decided Yes.  A world such as that was a world worth bringing a baby into.  First, because we know the One who holds the future in his hands and rest in his sovereignty.  And second, because we figured there was no better time to bring into the world yet another servant of the one and only true King as a witness to his mercy, his love, his sovereignty, and his grace.  We continued on our journey toward parenthood undeterred.  Isaac was born June 2002.  You do the math. 

And we continue to rest in the arms of that same King.  Resting assured, without fear.  Eagerly anticipating the day when there will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more weeping.  When all is as it should be.  Come, Lord Jesus!

You think you’ve got it bad . . .

. . .  you should meet Mr. So-and-so.  His life’s really bad.  You’ve got it good.  You should just thank your lucky stars you’ve got it so good and quit your complaining.

I hate that.  I hate hate hate when people say that to me.  And I hate it more when people say it to other people.  And you know what?  I probably hate it most when I hear people say it to themselves.

It’s just poison to me.

Why does there have to be a Who’s-Got-It-Worst contest?  Why can’t I be upset I stubbed my toe while I’m standing next to an amputee?  Why?  My toe hurts.  It really hurts.  It hurts worse than you expect a teeny tiny appendage to hurt and no matter what I do I can’t stop the pain and it’s throbbing up through my shin I slammed it so hard!  Yes the poor guy next to me longs to have a toe he can stub, but does it make my toe hurt any less?  Would he not cry out in agony if he magically regained a leg and a toe and subsequently slammed it into a curb?  I’m pretty sure he would.  And, the right response, I suppose, would be:  “Well, at least you have a toe.”

How is that helpful?  How is that kind and compassionate?  How how how?

Why can’t my toe just hurt because it hurts and why can’t you just say, “I’m sorry your toe hurts.  Gee that sucks!”?  Then when my toe stops hurting I can carry on in my quest to solve all the world’s ills.

So, somebody does this to me.  I’m overwhelmed by life and this person’s response is, essentially, “Suck it up and deal, you should see what real anguish is like.”  That is so not helpful.  My anguish is my anguish, no matter how trivial.  Let me have it.  The thing is, if it’s my anguish, I’m going to feel it whether or not you give me permission to feel it.  And if you strip me of my permission, you’re not leaving me without anguish, you’re leaving me still firmly in anguish but now I’m drowning in guilt to boot.  Again I say, how is this helpful?  I hate it.  Just let me feel crappy and tell me you’re sorry I feel crappy, wish me well, and send me on my way.

Should I address here the fact that said person doesn’t even know what I’m overwhelmed by and he’s only assuming it’s trivial?  No, I’ll worry about that later. . . .

So, I hate when people do it to me, but I hate it more when people do it to someone else.  Why?  Because I know it’s an awful, totally unhelpful, minimizing, dehumanizing thing to say and I worry that the recipient doesn’t know that and that he will now go off into the depths of guilt, wounded and weakened by pain, all the more likely to drown in it.  And my heart aches for him.  I just want to say, “Ugh, your wound, your pain, it sucks.  And I’m so sorry.  I can’t imagine how that hurts.”  (Because I’ve never felt his pain, and I’m not him, so I can’t even imagine it.)  Oh yeah.  And I want to slap the other guy in the head.

Then there are the times when a person does it to herself.  She’s struggling, overwhelmed, in some sort of anguish, and she tells herself, “Oh, this is no big deal, Mr. So-and-so, he has real problems.”  And she chokes down her tears and packs up her sorrows and tries to carry on.  But she still has that heavy trunk of sorrows to carry around.  She won’t share it because she thinks it should be light enough to carry on her own.  But it clearly weighs her down, so it’s clearly not light enough for her to carry on her own.  And that’s OK.

You know what?  I think I’m only good for carrying like 40 pounds around anywhere for any length of time.  And that’s 40 living pounds, as in the weight of a small child (well, young child in my house, anyway).  A dead weight?  I probably can’t do 40.  My husband?  He works out in a gym.  Has done so for . . . well I’d say as long as I know him, but I’m not sure he started when he was eleven . . . lets say an even 20 years.  He can carry so much weight around that when I ask him “How much weight can you carry?”  he has to give me a zillion different possible scenarios to determine a specific answer.  “How am I carrying it?  Like in my arms?  Like a bar across my shoulders and squat it?  A person?  Am I going up hill or down hill?”  etc. etc. etc.  I can pick up 40 pounds, tops, under any circumstances.  Now I have to get specific for my husband to come up with a range:  about 200 pounds, we’ve concluded.  (We’ve also concluded he could probably “move” up to 400 lbs.  Like on an incline bench pushing up with his legs.  Once.  It’s been a fun conversation.)

Point is:  I can pick up 40 pounds.  My husband can pick up 200.  Say we come home from the grocery store and in an attempt to get the groceries inside as quickly as possible we both load up both our arms with grocery bags:  I with 50 pounds, he with 100.   When I stagger my way into the house, my husband is not going to say, “Heh.  You think that’s heavy?  That’s not heavy.  I have twice as much as that in my hands!  Stop staggering and get in this house.”  No.  He’s going to help me get some bags out of my arms because he knows I’m maxing out my strength and my herniated disks in my neck.  What matters is not how much he or someone else can carry or is carrying.  What matters is the load I’m bearing is hurting my arms and my neck and making me stumble.

If we can see the logic of that (and I hope you can) when we’re talking about physical loads, why can’t we see it when we’re talking about emotional ones?  Why do we allow ourselves and others to feel crummy only when we’ve determined the load is heavy enough, not when the person does indeed feel crummy?   Why is it a contest?  Why do we feel compelled to justify our exhaustion?  Why do we feel compelled to minimize someone else’s?   Can’t we just feel the weight of what we’re carrying, whatever the mass?

Talking to my frustrated engineer husband just now (while he’s supposed to be finishing up his sermon.  It is, after all, Saturday night), took me on a little tangent.  But really, it might not be such a tangent after all.  It might just be a deepening of my analogy.  A deepening best appreciated by the science-minded, but that’s OK.  We love them too.

If you (are able,) remember back to your Physics 101, one of the crucial formulae you learned was  F=MA.  Force equals Mass times Acceleration.  The downward force of an object, its weight, is dependent upon not only its mass, but also the acceleration due to gravity in its particular environment.  Remember that a particular object has a particular mass, but it will weigh more on earth than it does on the moon due to the moon’s lower acceleration due to gravity.  So, my two volumes of Calvin’s Institutes always have the same mass, no matter where they are, but if I put them in my backpack on earth, I will feel them pulling against my shoulders a little.  But they’ll simply float away on the moon.  Same books, different circumstances; different environment, different impact.

So, I posit (since I’m getting all scientific-y here), it is with life’s travails.  What totally bogs one person down is barely a blip on the screen of another.  The specifics of the challenge (the mass) is the same, but the conditions and the circumstances (the acceleration due to gravity) are different.  Not better or worse, not weaker or stronger, just different.  Like all people are different.  Consequently, the impact on each person will be different.  Again, not better, not worse, just different.  What matters most is how the individual person is experiencing the weight (the force) of the challenge.

And our job, as fellow brothers and sisters in faith or simply as fellow humans on this planet, is to meet people where they are, to consider only the weight of their pain or struggle or challenge as it manifests itself in their own planet personal experience, and help them carry it.  Our job with ourselves is to stop worrying about how much our problem weighs in someone else’s sphere, and give ourselves permission to feel its weight in our own lives and to ask for help carrying it if we need it.

Sometimes life sucks.  And that’s OK.  Sometimes it hurts, sometimes the little things take us down, sometimes the big things leave us stronger.  Or the big things pummel us to smitherines and the little things are teeny tiny pings.  And it’s all OK.  As in, it’s all crappy and as crappy as we feel it to be.  And if you don’t think so, then kindly leave me alone.  And leave him alone.  And leave yourself alone.  Life is challenging enough without making it a contest.

For the three-millionth time . . .

Theology matters.

The problem could lie with me, but I have encountered many people who are resistant to hear my going on and on teaching about theology. People-in-the-pews (though, in this case, they’re actually sitting around a table for a study) effectively saying (though much more politely and “churchly”) “Will ya shut up about Calvin already?!!” Or “I don’t want to hear the word Reformed ever again!” Or (and this one is closer to verbatim) “Why do we need all this theology talk anyway? Can’t we just read the Bible?”

I’ll be honest. Sometimes it hurts my feelings. I’m led to question my greatest intellectual passion and pretty much my whole perceived reason for being, not to mention everything I’ve done with my brain for the last 10 years and-then-some. Other times I don’t care. I might look at is as my hobby, my fun and games. Some people crochet, I theologize. At those moments, while I’m not really changing my ways, I am buying into the opinions of my naysayers, and discrediting the global value of my intellectual pursuits. Right or wrong. That’s what I’m doing.

So, I get in this place where I think there really is no value in what I’m doing/thinking/studying/ranting beyond my pure enjoyment and, occasionally, dragging someone else in on my intellectual gymnastics for a little fun. Just for kicks.

And then. And then I have an encounter with a person who has been seriously messed up by the theology they’ve been taught, the theology they’ve been steeped in, the theology that has shaped their walks. And then I have a stark reminder that theology does, indeed, matter. It matters very much.

The reality is that we can’t “just read the Bible.” We as human beings bring our own baggage and junk to the Bible, read into it and out of it things that are informed by our own experiences and biases. If it were indeed possible to “just read the Bible” or have simply “Bible-focused theology,” there wouldn’t be thirty-five million (give or take) denominations. Most everybody thinks they’re being faithful to the Bible, nobody’s throwing the thing out. I think groups are better or worse at recognizing their own cultural biases and personal lenses through which they read Scripture, but at the end of the day, everyone’s got them.

So, my point in all that rambling is that everybody has a theology, everybody has some sort of driving doctrine, even if they claim otherwise. And the shape and scope of that theology, each flavor, each doctrine, matters. Real people get real hurt by crappy theology.

There. I said crappy. Call the cops. I’m being judgmental. But crappy is as crappy hurts. I spent Sunday afternoon with a woman of immense faith. By that I mean she was raised in the church, switched denominations upon marrying, but continued to be a faithful member of a church. She has taken as completely unquestionable truth the identity of Jesus Christ as Lord. She believes and knows to her core that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, Lord of all; that he died on her behalf, taking with him her sins, defeating death to rise again, all to reconcile her to God. In other words, in the words of another tradition, she is saved. Period.

And she’s scared to death. Better said, she’s scared of death. And she’s scared of God. And she’s scared she could never possibly be good enough to get to heaven, that were Jesus to return right now, she’d be spending eternity burning in the fiery pit of hell. She spoke of hating when one of her pastors would speak of how wonderful Jesus’ return will be. She trembles at the thought. She has been convinced by the same people who convinced her of the truth of the gospel that her salvation is in her tenuous grip, that one wrong move and it’s all over. She fears the consequences of some life changes she’s made in the last several years that has led her to keep company with an Irish Catholic. She has now entered the fast and slippery track to hades as she has begun to drink an occasional glass of wine (*gasp*) and journey to gambling establishments a couple of times a year. I nearly worded that last sentence “She enjoys the occasional glass of wine and trip to casinos,” but I’m quite certain she doesn’t truly enjoy any of it, so convinced is she that they are contributing to her purchase of a one-way ticket to you-know-where. Instead she almost enjoys herself, while at the same time resigning herself to her fate of eternal damnation. Happy times, I tell ya.

I know I’m supposed to just appreciate the differences between denominations. I know I’m supposed to agree to disagree. And most of the time I do. I might joke to the contrary, but I really have an appreciation for how the personalities that go with each denomination and the emphases each brings to the table all work together to present a fuller picture of all we can understand about God this side of the Kingdom.

But sometimes . . . sometimes I’m confronted with the consequences of a theology other than my own and I think, No. Some ideas about God are just wrong. I’m not claiming that I’ve got it all together, I’m not. But when a teaching about God, one’s words about God, leave a person trembling in fear–leave a believer trembling in fear, something is terribly wrong.

When we read the epistles, we find joyful anticipation of Christ’s return. The epistles, even Revelation, are words of hope to a struggling community. How many of the first Christians would have signed on if doing so not only threatened their lives through persecution but also left them scared to death of . . . well . . . death. What’s the point?

“If we have hoped in Christ for this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1Cor 15:19)

To that I say, “You’re not kidding, Paul.”

I admit I haven’t researched this alternative theology extensively for my little ramblings here, but this much I know is true. The Gospel is, literally, Good News. That’s what the word means. It is good news. And good news don’t leave the believer fearful and crawling under the pews. It just don’t. Sure, preach your fire and brimstone if you want, if you truly believe it a good means of conversion (though the million ways I disagree with that would take at least another post.)
But when you’re preaching to the believers, to the people who have been convinced of the truth of the gospel, preach them some good news, will you? Preach them the kind of news that helps them sleep at night and get out of bed in the morning. Preach them the kind of good news they can cling to when they’re faced with major surgery and old age and, especially, major surgery in old age.

If the gospel taught and received leaves the recipient hopeless and filled with fear, or scrambling to keep up, to keep the law, to be good enough, this is no good news at all. I dare to say it is a different gospel, not that there is another gospel, from the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:6-9). For the gospel of Jesus Christ is a good news of hope and assurance, news of salvation.

Theology is just that: words about God. The words we speak about God, matter. And the words we speak, after we stop reading and lift our heads up from the Bible, are indeed theology. So, for the three-millionth time: theology matters. It is a matter of life and death: both how we live our life (in hope or dread?) and how we face our death (in hope or dread).

Big Enough God, And How!

So as briefly alluded to in my last desperate post, my husband was out of town this past week. He left around two on Sunday afternoon and returned at nine o’clock last night. The anticipation of this trip was part of what sent me off the deep end on Sunday. I am so not that mother.  You know, the one who does everything around the house, all the cooking, everything to take care of the kids, is the only one whose sleep is disturbed by children that go bump in the night.  I am so not that mother.

I am the mother whose husband picks up food from the grocery store on his way home from work, walks in the door and gets to cooking.  Except on the evenings I throw the children to him and take on the task of cooking the food before I cook the children.  And except for the evenings I throw the children and the dinner prep at him and hide away somewhere.  I’m that mother.

So, when the Daddy leaves town, things change around here.  The whole system changes.  And it scares me.

But you know what?  This week was amazing.  Starting with the eye-opening encounter with God on a beautiful country road on Sunday and continuing on through to Thursday:  miraculous intervention.  Miraculous patience, miraculous drive.  All week long I kept my eyes on the two feet right in front of me, paying no attention to the days-without-husband that stretched before me.  In fact, the hardest day was yesterday when I knew it was almost over and I kept looking past the task at hand and toward the top of the knoll.  It was then that I began tripping, losing momentum.

Until that point, I simply did what was right before me.  Change this diaper, not “Urgh, all these diapers!!!“  Toddler decides to awaken 3 1/2 hours before I go to sleep?  OK.  Get up and love on sleepless toddler.  Don’t think about how tired you’re going to feel all day long.

Maybe some of you are saying, “Well, of course!”  But this is not my way.  This is one of my biggest struggles, to get so lost in the scope of the entire task (whatever it is) that I’m left paralyzed and unable to take a single step toward accomplishing it.  Not so this week.  This week I took things one thing, one moment at a time.  I did set some longterm goals, however.  1.  My husband will come home to a house neater and cleaner than the one he left and 2.  I will get all of these clean clothes folded and put away.  And I surpassed these goals by a mile.  One pile of toys at a time.  One basket of clothes at a time.  When I looked in my room full of clean clothes yesterday (and I do mean full) I didn’t succumb to paralysis, I picked one pile and got to work.

I can’t count the number of times this week I raised words of gratitude to the One I know was responsible for this transformation.  I really had been in a dark spot these last few weeks, going through a cycle of questioning all of my faith.  The whole thing, the whole God story, seemed so distant, so unreal to me.  And then I yelled at God on Sunday.  I did.  I yelled and argued and essentially told him I wasn’t buying what he was selling.

And how did he respond?  With a swift smite?  No.  With grace.  With grace sufficient and abundant.  With more grace than I knew I needed or could imagine available.  Without a doubt I know that God met me this week.  Met me on the pretty road to nowhere, with windmills off in the distance and brown hay on either side.  Met me in each gross never-ending-this-kid-eats-entirely-too-much-fiber diaper.  In every solo bedtime with crazed toddler and tired olders.  In every minute of each and every day.  His grace was sufficient.

His grace is sufficient.  For yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Praise be to God!

Another one of those days in the life of a SAHM

Blech. That kind of day. Blech blech blech. One of those days when I feel completely overwhelmed by the task at hand: guiding three people into healthy, productive, Godly adulthood all while making sure we’re not buried in an avalanche of toys and papers-from-who-knows-where and other miscellaneous junk nor dying from some dread disease due to the microorganisms having a field day on my floors and in my bathroom and kitchen, not to mention ensuring that we’re all eating healthy food, and in the meantime maintaining a marriage I’ll still be happy to be a part of when these three other people move out and I’m left staring at this guy, and this guy alone.  *sigh*

The thing is, I feel like I’m doing this in a vacuum.  I’ve said it before, I think.  I feel like I’m just taking shots in the dark, hoping and praying for the best, unable to see how successful (or not) I am for at least another twenty years.  AAAHH!!  Long range planning, you’re not kidding.  And the thing is, if I’m failing, it’s not just a building crumbling down or the end of a corporation–not that these are good things, mind you–it’s three people.  Three human beings living those healthy, Godly, productive lives, or sitting on Death Row with a trail of death and mayhem in their wake.  Ok, so there’s a whole lot in between, but I told you.  It’s one of those days.  And these are the things that fly through my hyper-active brain on days like these.

There’s no immediate feedback.  Sure, my kids love me.  But I’ve seen kids love some monsters of parents.  Toddlers and young elementary school kids are programmed to love their parents.  The tragedy is when they’re knocking themselves out trying to perform well enough for their twisted parents to love them back.  I often worry I’m one of those twisted parents.  That’s when the Death Row image appears.

So.  No immediate feedback.  My husband tells me I’m doing a good job with the whole Mommy business, but he gets paid to tell people nice, encouraging things.  Although he doesn’t lie to his parishioners.  Really.  But he’s an optimist.  And I find those people suspect.

I need to find something to do that has immediate feedback (well, relative to the 20-year plan I’m on now, anyway).  Immediate feedback that I’m doing something well.  I need a hobby.  With instant gratification.  I have a cross-stitch project I started the summer before Isaac was born (um.  so that would be 7 1/2 years ago now, but who’s counting?).  It’s probably an hour from finished.  Maybe if I take that out tonight.  Then I’ll have nice neat little X’s and a complete picture to show me I’m not a complete failure of a person today.

Wow.  This is a whine of epic proportions.  Ok.  Ok.  Think.  Think.  Think.  Get yourself out of this!  If you’ve been reading my stuff since I started in the summer, remember those summer days when I locked myself in my bedroom with the air conditioner set at 67 and, lulled into relaxation by the AC’s white noise, I wrote here, reflected on the good in my life, and came to the end feeling much better for it?  Yeah.  It’s one of those days, but I’m not getting there.  Sure, now my heat is set at 67, so the temperature is the same, but the white noise is Clifford in the background and the buzzing knowledge that Hannah is turning into a vegetable while zoning out on PBSKids.  And my thoughts are just not taking me to that magic land of refreshment.

Ok, little Calvinist.  Here’s your first clue.  When you declare:  “Get yourself out of this!”  That’s when all the sirens and bells and whistles are supposed to go off in your thought-soaked, self-defeating brain.  Ahh.  Yes.  I can’t get myself out of this.  And that’s OK.  Because praise be to God, it’s not all up to me to get myself out of this.  “One of those days” is one of those days to fall prostrate (literally or figuratively) before the One who made me, the One who called me so clearly to this mission, this ministry, the One who promised to be with me always, the One who provides refreshment from a living water to a weary, thirsty soul.

It’s one of those days.  A day for prayer.  A day for Psalms.  A day of surrender.  Tears in my eyes, shoulders heavy and drooping, I proclaim “I cannot do this!!”  Lord, please do it for me.  Lift me up.  Carry me through.  Renew my trust that these three little people are your people, that you’ve placed them in just the home they need to be in order to grow into the people you’d have them be, to do the work you’d have them do.  Your people.  Not my people.  Remind me that you are more than big enough to heal them from my failures.  Remind me that my greatest responsibility is to demonstrate and witness to your love for them.  Return my focus to you; may I seek your approval and affirmation only.  Let that be sufficient.  Let you be sufficient.  Because you are sufficient.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Amen.

A Quiet House, a Laptop, and a Glass of Wine

*sigh*

I could almost end the post there. But that would be so entirely out of character of me. A title and a sigh? Too brief. Lee don’t do brief. That much is likely obvious at this point.

So here I am. In a quiet house. With a laptop on my . . . well . . . lap. And a glass of wine beside me. Merlot. It’s only a tiny bit, but it’s there. Nice. Relaxing. The quiet. The wine. My warm, humming, lap-dwelling, purple-plastic-encased friend and my thoughts. *sigh*

I had a stupid crazy day. A roller coaster day. One that needed to end this way. With my older two off to a Halloween party with my husband and Ruth asleep upstairs at the early hour of 6 P.M. It’s so quiet. So very quiet. I’m rarely alone in the house. Not that I’m truly alone right now, the lull of Ruth’s white-noise machine coming through on the monitor reminds me of that. But I am mostly alone. Alone enough. In my own house, so I can wear sweatpants and a fleece pullover and thick cozy gym socks and no shoes and no makeup and messy hair. I can feel the tension that built up all day seeping out of me. With each breath, my lungs expand a little fuller, my shoulders drop a little lower, my blood pressure follows my shoulders.

What brings me to this place? The place of extreme tension that needed release? I’m not exactly sure. I don’t know what made me crazy today, I just know that I was.

We had a wonderful Friday and Saturday. My used-to-be-imaginary friend came to visit with her cute, cute boys. The three older ones had a great time playing together, the blue-eyed visitor eagerly and comfortably exploring most every nook and cranny of our home in search of more and more of what I’ve discovered is an excessive amount of toys and treasures. My toddler-girl only barely tolerated all my lovin’ on the baby-boy visitor, but I reveled in it. My future mom-to-many preschooler did more than her fair share of lovin’ on the baby too. Well, lets face it, we all did. I imagine it was most intense as our own last baby just turned 18 months and with that turn has now left babyhood in her rear-view mirror.

It was glorious to get simply to sit and chat with a bona fide grown-up, one who is a mom of wee ones, like me. One who is a Christian, like me. One who hops up immediately to tend to her crying baby, like me. One who doesn’t think I’m stark raving mad for still nursing my toddler. One who thinks. Really thinks about things, who had a thinking life before children and looks forward to thinking more when her children are older. One who joined my husband and me in our coffee extravaganza yesterday.

Online chit-chat is wonderful. I love it. I love my message board. I love my imaginary friends, and truly do count them among my real friends, contrary to what I call them. I know they’re real. They know I’m real. And we have a real relationship. And I don’t know how I would have made it through my parenting years, particularly the last 20-plus months without them.

However. Nothing can replace that comfort of being face-to-face with someone who gets you. Someone who looks straight into your eyes as you talk, indicating she’s listening intently, encouraging you to say more. Encouraging me to say more, when this blog is my best attempt at making my stories brief. No matter how well you can express your feelings in writing, no matter how expansive your pantry of emoticons is, it’s not the same–it can’t be the same–as sitting with another flesh-and-bone human being and exchanging thoughts, ideas, stories, laughter, coffee-coffee-coffee, dinner, screaming kids, loud cymbals crashing, and more electronic toys than you ever thought a semi-crunchy mom would allow. It can never be the same.

God came in flesh and bone.

I didn’t mean to go that direction when I sat down to my laptop in my quiet house and with my glass of wine. None of this was what I planned to say. But here I am, staring it in the face. As I ponder the difference between this long-distance, two-dimensional medium of relating and real (IRL) human interaction, theological implications bubble up. I think it’s my job. I typed flesh and bone and WHAM! Incarnation popped into my head. Well, I’m not sure if it would WHAM if it simply popped in, but at any rate, I was staring it in the face. Scratch that. I was staring Him in the face. God. In flesh. To earth come down. God is incarnational. In-flesh-y. For the sake of not only our sin, but also for our sensual nature, God put on flesh to be amongst us IRL. Real, tangible, concrete, face-to-face. And in that encounter, we are given a full-on view of God, his nature, his character, his personhood. God has still left some things to mystery, for sure. But in Christ Jesus, we see our fullest possible view of God. We needed it and he gave it to us.

This is how we operate. We need the tangible. Something is lacking in both our relationship with God and with one another if we don’t have the concrete, tangible, taste-touch-smell-see encounter with Him or with one another. God knew this (well, of course He knew it, he’s God!) and came to where we could see him and touch him and smell him–and think on that, he did smell: first century Palestine, sandals and poor sanitation, donkeys and all that–and did his best work amongst us and for us. And he continues to relate to us that way, in-flesh-y. He meets us there in the sacraments in a way we can see and taste and smell and splash and accidentally poor down the front of our favorite church-y maternity blouse. He knows we work best through our senses–even poor, sensory-dull me–and he accommodates that sensory nature of ours: meeting us in flesh and in water and in bread and in wine (even if it is Welches’ and not merlot) and in people.

Is it any accident Jesus didn’t come to earth in the time of mass media? Well, it’s God we’re talking about here, so that’s your first clue that it was no accident. No. God came at a time when in order to share good news with someone, in order to share any news with someone, you had to be with that someone. Sure, you could write a letter, but even that letter had to be delivered by someone sent from me to you with a message you could likely see written all over his face in the form of JOY. You can’t text joy. You can’t chat joy. You can’t post it, put it in a thread, or even emoticon it. That is not joy. It looks the same as happy. And kinda happy. And gee I just smiled thinking of you. Even my favorite, :bounce (with the little smiley-guy bouncing up and down on a couch) that’s not joy. Eyes glowing, tears glistening, body shaking, that’s joy. Or at least the start of it. Voice higher, faster, brighter; hands gesticulating wildly, knee bouncing. More joy, with some excitement thrown in.

This is how God made us to interact: three, four, eight dimensions, all at play, communicating, relating, being together. It’s a necessary part of being human. It’s the fullest way of being friends. It’s God’s fullest way of being God. With us.

Hunh. That didn’t go where I though it was going to go. My wine is gone, my laptop is making my lapsweat, and I just heard the mini-van door close, indicating my house will only be quiet for about another thirty seconds. But I thought. And I’m relaxed. And I’ve gained a greater appreciation for my God and for my crazy, loud, boisterous, smelly, dirty, cute, sweet, bouncing, joy-filled, exuberant children. And for my husband who is every bit flesh and bone. Human. And wonderful. Praise be to God He made us to be with people. Smells and all.

My Boy Isaac

We went to Open House at Isaac’s elementary school last night. This Boy had been turning inside out in anticipation of this event since last Thursday. He very excitedly asked his aunt, my sister, to come along. My poor sister who had left for work at 7AM, nearly had a car accident on her way, had a full, full day, arrived to our house to get her girls at 5:30, looked at this Boy jumping up and down and ever-so excitedly asking her to come to his “Opened House”, slurring his words through his gap-toothed grin. What’s an aunt to do? She had to go. And she did. We all had a fun time watching Isaac flit (jump, bounce, float) about his school, showing his bigger little sister all the places he goes and all the things he does.

Even though it wasn’t a parent-teacher conference, we did get some one-on-one time with Isaac’s teacher and got the skinny on how he’s doing. Yep. It’s official. The Boy is brilliant. No, really, he’s doing just fine, which is good to hear, especially since his birthday is in June, which leaves him on the younger side of his class and especially since you hear all this stuff about boys in school really struggling, etc. etc. etc. Just to have the trained professional say he’s doing fine. It’s a big relief.

What really meant the most to me, what meant more than his academic success, was his teacher’s assessment of his character.  “He’s ambitious.  He does all his work and asks what else he can do.”  That’s my firstborn-son of a firstborn-son of a firstborn-son of a (I think) firstborn-son!  Even better than that:  “He’s compassionate.  He’s really tuned in to the kids around him who are struggling and is quick to help them.  He’s always looking out for the underdog.”  *sniff*  *sniff*  That, for me, matters more than anything else he does in school.  Anything.  That’s my Boy, embodying the Gospel in the First Grade.  Serving His Lord and bearing His love.  All while having an inside-out blast and learning to read to boot.

And that’s the thing.  Above all else, my Boy is a child of God.  God’s Boy.  He’s working for Him.  So while this all may sound like some sort of brag, it’s not.  It’s amazement at discovering what wondrous things my God has done in and through His boy, Isaac.  It’s joy at seeing one of God’s creations really doing his thing.  “his” thing?  “His” thing?  Yep.  Both.  I’m mostly an observer.  Trying my best to do God’s thing with respect to the Boy he’s given me to guide and nurture to His glory.  But if this Boy’s success were up to my abilities to do the right mothering?  Good grief!  We would have had a totally different conversation last night.  I’m fumbling my way through.  But God.  Oh, God is doing amazing things with this Boy.  What a privilege to watch it all unfold.

And as far as what the school’s there to do for him?  To prepare him academically for the future?  If Isaac has ambition and compassion, what can’t he do?