Random Thoughts from the Month of May

• Many of you know this already, but I’ll say it anyway: May is to a mom of school kids what April is to accountants and December is to retailers.
• And how many of you knew there’s a whole world out there that buys big bouquets of flowers for their preschoolers’ dance recitals? We didn’t get the memo, and I would have been too practical to accept the idea even if we had. The first thing Camryn said when I went to pick her up was, “I bet you didn’t get me a flower, did you?” (At the young age of 5, how well she knows her mother.) But when we made our way through the crowds and caught up with the men in our family, Braden handed her a pink, slightly worn carnation that had fallen from someone else’s bouquet. She lit up like a neon sign and carried it with her all day long.
• Is there any more awesome way to finish up a school year than to watch the Air Force Thunderbirds streak across the sky each year? Our school is across the street, basically, from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and we appreciate that they schedule their graduation the same day our classes end. Feels like the Thunderbirds are there just for us. As an added bonus, we got to see the presidential helicopter this year, too.
• There are few things more awkward to watch than sixth-grade suburban boys attempting the Electric Slide at their year-end party.
• Believe it or not, there are children who are heartbroken at the thought of school being over for three months. I was one, and I have one (Brooka).
• Satan has a field day with moms who have no real summer plans (unless surviving another summer in the Shome is considered a “plan”) yet are surrounded by those who have very exciting plans. Today I declare war on comparing myself to others and being whiny instead of grateful.
• You know you’re getting older—or at least your kids are—when you wake up to find a toilet full of hours-old vomit. Old enough to vomit independently but not quite old enough to clean it up. Still, I’ll take it! 

Buying, Selling, and Believing

If you are not buying or selling a house right now, I’ll fill you in on what you’ve been missing. The market recently turned on a dime. Overnight, it went from a buyer’s market to a seller’s. Despite all the recent proclamations to the contrary, now is actually a wonderful time to sell a house. The inventory is as low as it’s been in years, and houses are now flying off the market. Woo-hoo for all you sellers out there!

Of course that’s not us, and it’s easy to wallow in gloomy self-pity over this turn of events. There’s a voice inside of me that says, “Well, of course it’s become a seller’s market—because we’re in it! Every time we’ve ever bought a house it’s been a seller’s market. Last time we had to race to get our full-price offers in, and looks like this time won’t be any different. Isn’t that just our luck?”

But the faith-filled voice inside me is having no part of this Murphy’s Law stuff. I’ve been praying a specific prayer for our family: that we would see God’s supernatural hand of intervention in our search for a house. I started off praying for a certain house, but that didn’t feel right, because what if that’s not where God wants us? When I asked Him about this, I got a pretty clear response in my head: “You don’t need to worry about choosing the house, Leura. You choose the faith to believe me, and I’ll choose the house.”

Even more than I want a backyard for the kids and a place where we can invite people over, even more than I want an oversized bathtub and a breakfast bar and carpet that I can sink my feet into, I want to see the indisputable hand of God work on our behalf. I want to see God’s glory even more than I want to live five minutes from school—and that is really saying something. A house is a house, but seeing God provide that house for us in a way we never expected—that’s where I want to live. And what kind of faith would be required if there were dozens of perfect houses for us to choose from?

Arrogant as it may seem, I take full credit for the turn in the market. And if my prayers for a miracle help out all you sellers, well, cool. Glad to help. 

Clean Slates

I’m that odd bird who loved junior high—at least seventh grade, anyway. I’ve always considered that year as the best of my childhood. It was the year when everything went right. Relationships clicked. The homework was easy and the grades were perfect. All the applause seemed to be for me. I looked cute in my cheerleading skirt. Those are the kinds of things that make a 13-year-old happy. I’m sure it wasn’t as blissful as I remember, but I had my own phone—the kind with a cord that would only stretch the length of my bed—and life was good.

Now I am preparing to send my own child to seventh grade. Last week Braden and I attended seventh-grade orientation at what will be his junior high. (Yes, we actually have an old-fashioned junior high with just seventh and eighth graders.) Of course I wonder how I got to this place in life and where the time went, but more than anything, I’m just crawling out of my skin with excitement for him. And it’s not because I happened to love seventh grade.

There is something so appealing about a clean slate, and this is not lost on Braden. Two other elementary schools feed into our junior high, so two-thirds of his classmates will be new to him. The principal also flashed a list of clubs and activities on the screen for us, and I could see Braden’s eyes light up. He has so many interests and desires, and now he has new ways of pursing them.

We talked on the way home about the few chances we get in life at a fresh start. About what a gift this time is and how he can use it to choose who he wants to be and what he wants to be known for. We talked about using this time to offload some of the bad habits and childish ways that are holding him back. At least on some small level, he seems to see that right here in seventh grade, he can start becoming the young man he wants to be. It won’t be smooth or easy, and none of us expects overnight maturity, but I’ve got to think he’s ahead of the game just by understanding the uniqueness of this opportunity.

I think we all long for a fresh start. I know I do. But how do I find that at 41? What do I do with my desires to offload the junk in me, to become the person I dream of being? Since ditching my family and running away to Paris is not a viable option, I’ll take God up on His new-every-morning promise:

“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

I’m not consumed by yesterday. Today is my clean slate—and if I mess it up, I get a new one tomorrow. Thank you, God. 

What Dwells in Me

Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel defeated? I had one recently, a day in which I couldn’t shake the frustration of everything I just cleaned getting messy again, everything I just fixed breaking again, every lesson taught unlearned again. It was last Saturday that I had this defeated feeling. Interesting that it was the day between Good Friday and Easter, the day when we think of Jesus in the grave and His followers held captive by what must have been the most defeated feeling of all time. I could sort of relate to them. Of course the big difference is that I knew Sunday was coming.

One of the first songs I ever learned in church said something like, “That same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.” I was too little to understand or care what that meant, but now it rocks my world to the core. It means that I may feel defeated, but I don’t have to live defeated. The power that raised Christ from the dead lives in me! It would be the understatement of the century to say that that’s a lot of power. But it is! And it’s there just waiting for me to tap into it. It’s not going to mop my floors or make my kids stop fighting, but it’s going to change the way I think about those things.

Life is defeating. It just is. As my husband reminds me, everything is in the process of dying, including us. Could there be anything more defeating than that? But that’s not the end of the story. Saturday is not the end of the story. Sunday and all the victory it brought with it—that’s the true story. Resurrection power living in me—and you—is the true story. And it’s my truth even when I’m up to my eyeballs in broken crayons and dirty towels and unmet expectations.

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead." —Ephesians 1:18-20a

Four: My Last Goodbye

Tonight I’m that strange, indecisive mix of both very happy and very sad. I just said goodbye to my four-year-old. Cuddled her. Kissed her. Snuggled her. Then shut the door on my very favorite kid age.

It’s not the first time. The first time was in July 2004. I knew there was pure magic wrapped up in that four-year-old little boy, but I was nursing a newborn and potty-training a two-year-old, and really, more than anything, I just wanted someone in that house to be a little bit more grown up and self-sufficient. And to go to kindergarten for half a day, please.

The second time was in September 2006. By this time I was fully aware that four was my favorite age, and I made a big deal of saying goodbye to it. Made signs, took pictures, asked the child if she was sure she really wanted to do this, and eventually drove her to raging tears over turning five. She was up half the night trying to resist the aging process. Note to self: Don’t make a big deal of life transitions with the sensitive child.

Then came April 2009. Brooka as a four-year-old sucked up more from life than most of the adults I knew. When she turned five, it seemed like she should be at least eight. I always say Brooka was little for about ten minutes, and I must have been in the bathroom and missed it. Besides, she was not my baby, and my baby still had years to go before she’d be five.

Well, the years went, and now we’re there. The baby’s four for another ten hours, and tomorrow she’ll be five. The age when kids start to change. The age when they begin to get the hint that their mother is not the all-wise, all-beautiful, all-capable center of the universe. That could drive me into a full-fledged sobfest, but instead, I’ll try to remember all that is good about five. She’ll get to go to kindergarten, and Camryn will love kindergarten. She’ll learn to read, and she’ll love to read. She’ll learn to play soccer and rollerskate and swim in the deep end of the pool, and she’ll love being able to do those things with the big kids. She’ll try new foods and visit new places and make more new friends than we can count. She’ll also start to realize that I’m not perfect, and that’s not only OK, it’s crucial. I bet she’ll still say, “Mommy, let’s hold hands” when we walk out of the grocery store.

Yeah, maybe five is my new favorite age.

These Games Aren't For Everyone

I’m resisting the urge to write about one hot blog topic—the Manning-Tebow drama that played out in Denver this week (suffice it to say that I’m heartsick)—in favor of another: the movie release of The Hunger Games.

I have not seen the movie, but earlier this year I decided to treat myself to some fiction reading. I ended up knocking out the whole Hunger Games series in a few weeks and though it lived up to the hype. But it is absolutely not for everyone.

Time magazine called it a “chilling, bloody and thoroughly horrifying book.” That’s exactly what it is, yet it’s also compelling, fascinating, and a wonderful study in character development, so much so that I couldn’t stop reading, despite my policy of avoiding disturbing sensory input. Yes, I was disturbed. I would question the moral fiber of anyone who could walk away from such a story undisturbed.

So can someone tell me why 12-year-olds are reading this? It’s the talk of my son’s sixth-grade classroom this week, with the books flying from one set of hands to another, apparently with the endorsement of the teacher, and “Team Gale” and “Team Peeta” dividing the ranks of the girls in the class. (A “Team Awesome” also sprung up in opposition to the whole Hunger Games craze.) I even heard rumors that kids in my daughter’s fourth-grade class were reading the book—those are 9- and 10-year olds. This is more disturbing to me than the book itself.

I won’t be so simplistic as to rail against the violence. My 7-year-old has seen all of the Star Wars movies and a good amount of Indiana Jones, so I don’t want to be hypocritical. My concern goes much deeper than kids and violence. I’m wondering how we turned into a society that forces our kids out of childhood so quickly. I realize that many kids have childhood stolen away by unavoidable life events and circumstances. That seems all the more reason to vigilantly protect their childhood from something as controllable as media. Why do we think it’s cute when 9-year-old girls scream over Justin Bieber? Why is there even a market for slutty-looking dolls marketed to 7-year-olds? Why do 11-year-olds look for identity in a cell phone? And why do 12-year-olds read books about teenagers forced to fight to their bloody deaths by a tyrannical government? How did we get here? And what are we going to do about it?

Not exposing our kids to the Hunger Games is a good start. I found this quote on an MSN entertainment site, and I think it gets to the heart of the issue:

“Really, though, the question should not be ‘Will my child be traumatized by watching this?’ Because if that is even a question, then they should watch something else. The better question is: Will my child understand what this movie is really about?”

If there are 12-year-olds out there who truly understand starvation, desperation, abandonment, hopelessness, psychological manipulation, governmental corruption, and megalomaniacs, then I pray they’ll end up in the office of a loving counselor instead of the seat of a movie theater. As much as it’s in our control, until our children have aged gently into the mental and emotional capacity to deal with the harsh realities of the world, can we just let them be kids?

Foot Traffic

People in my old neighborhood walk for exercise, either for themselves or for their dogs. People in my current neighborhood—I still have not found an accurate term for where we live: “downtown,” “the inner-city,” “the ’hood”—walk as a means of transportation. We live on a busy street with a bus stop a couple doors down and a Family Dollar store across the street. This creates a great deal of foot traffic in front of our building and plenty of opportunities for people watching.

Too bad Jesus isn’t satisfied with my mere watching of people. No, He wants me to engage with them. Sometimes I stay put and feel guilty about this, and sometimes I actually do something about it.

A couple Sundays ago, I was out for my morning run before church. I took longer than I expected and found myself crunched for time as I rounded the corner for the last six blocks. Two blocks later, I saw a woman walking with a cane up ahead of me. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her. As I’ve passed her a few times on my way to take the kids to school, I’ve whispered, “God bless you, sister” as I watch her labored gait move slowly, oh so slowly, down the street.

Now she was in front of me, sliding one foot in front of the other with the effort of a frozen mountaineer scaling Everest. I was running at a near sprint, making good time. Checking the clock on my iPod, I knew it was risky to start a conversation with her. Would there be enough time to find clothes for all the kids, hose down their heads, buckles shoes, round up coats, and maybe still get a shower for myself? I hate being late for church. You miss all the good songs.

But what about being the church? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, about the importance of teaching the kids not just to do church—ritualistically, once a week—but to actually be the church to the hurting world. Would the church run by this woman without a glance? Would Jesus?

I stopped and assumed her snail’s pace. I said something about seeing her walk along this street before and admiring her tenacity. I told her I hoped I would be like her some day. All true. And then I got an education.

Her name is Renee. She’s 64. She’s had the same group of girlfriends her whole life, and they’re planning a big bash for their 65^th birthdays this year. She’d like to go in a hot-air balloon. She has two daughters who live far away. She worked in insurance for 29 years while raising her daughters, then went to college and then grad school to become a librarian. This woman with a couple of prominent teeth missing has more education than I do. Her husband died a while back, and she moved to Colorado Springs for a fresh start. She has a roommate she enjoys. She goes to church about a mile and a half away and usually has someone who picks her up because she doesn’t drive anymore. But on that day, the youth group was having a special breakfast for seniors, and she didn’t want to miss it, so she decided to walk. A mile and a half. She’d never made it further than our shop, which was about halfway. But she knew if she could make it to the bus stop, she could rest for a while before continuing. Along the way, she picked up cans and placed them into one of the several bags she was carrying. (Yes, “bag lady” came to mind before I took the time to know her.) She collects the tabs off the cans because somehow they are converted to money for the Ronald McDonald house in our neighborhood. She also volunteers on Fridays at the neighborhood school—the one where 90 percent of the kids are on the free-lunch program—to read to the kindergartners, and they bring in cans for her so they can support the Ronald McDonald house, too.

And here I thought I was the one being the church to Renee. God never tires of finding new ways to humble me.

I was hanging on her every word and barely noticed we had made it to the bus stop where she planned to rest. She was sweating pretty hard by now, and I begged her, pleaded, to let me drive her the rest of the way to church. After about four gentle rebuffs, she looked me straight in the eye and said firmly, “I need to do this.”

Again, I begged her to knock on our door if she changed her mind. I took her hand and told her I’d see her around. I went upstairs and looked out my window, watching to see if she would change her mind. She didn’t. Instead, she shuffled off, grabbing a can or two along the way, until I couldn’t see her anymore.

We were about five minutes late for church, and I didn’t mind one bit this time.