A Peek Inside My Room

Our camera broke. Someday we will get a new one before I miss capturing too much of visual life. In spite of the fact that you cannot see our days, there is always something to write about as the interior of my mind is never a sparsely furnished room. How could it be in a world so full? Indulge me and come along inside this room of mine this last week…

***Lars and I swam together yesterday for an hour, without Anders.  Out of the house and away from Curious George it was like getting re-acquainted.  We joined hands, put our goggles on and jumped in, watching each other dance under the illuminated aqua water.  Lars was so fluid and long, his movements controlled and firm. And joyous. I’ve never watched my son underwater. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it in these his last days of being seven. I wish you all could meet him–how he came out from me to be his own spectacular human being astounds me. He’s an onion you see, so many layers to discover if one is patient to peel. So much you would not know at a first meeting. I told him I know his struggles, but I am seeing growth; I am seeing Jesus. Even in the last week there is so much fruit of patience, diligence and pure love. And joy. I told him he spurs me on. He smiled and hugged me and told me how good it was to just be with me. Then told me about the glories of Lego’s and how tragic it would be if one did not have an imagination or know the love of God…  That hour, those are the sugar cubes of motherhood.

***In all my wanderings into the dialects of Christendom these last ten years, would you believe it we have landed right back were it all began with me, in an EFCA church? Tiny and faltering, we are the youngest couple there. But for now it is peaceful and right.  Funny how this Gideon-like place has refueled my belief in the church, apart from all the glitz and glamour.  Maybe because I have just been so hungry for the Trinity and all the rest has been too much.  Anyhow, there is a Spanish church that meets in the evenings (Ben played bass with them this last week). We have been meeting together on Wednesday nights for a meal, kid’s club and English classes. I teach eight little Latino kids, most from Mexico, and Ben helps with 19 adults in learning English. Then we worship in Spanish and English with definite Latin flavor. We come home and can hardly sleep we are so stoked to be a part of this and be with these people. We both simply LOVE Latino people and just to be around them, eating, teaching, singing, chatting is like a bit of heaven for us. I wonder what God has in mind…

***After months of laborious research I have chosen the boys’ curriculum for school this year. I continue to pray for all the funding to actually order it, but with our letter in the mail to the district superintendent we are officially home educators!  I know, I know “what about their socialization?” Geez… I’m working on starting another blog only about this journey, both for my own records and for others to listen in/comment insight on.  Certainly we are not against public schools, we simply know the Shepard’s leading in this and are excited, quite giddy, about all we get to pour into the boys this year, most specifically Larsen for second grade.

***My soul was rather despondent, but I have been asking to see with not my natural eyes but spiritual eyes.  Hope is being restored, yet again.  That is His continual business, this restoration. I had some rusty hinges and peeling paint I did not realize were there. And of course some things I thought were there, but they were only a lying mirage.  How kind He is with us. What an arduous journey this is for us all. So maybe we are not seizing every moment with rigor, maybe a day is not all that purpose-driven, maybe we have made it all too hard when we have forgotten that all the work of striving was done on the cross and we bear it no more.  Can it be enough to love those around you, notice the clouds hung today and the funny shape of bird feet and in doing that pointing to God who fuels it all?  It is the rest we have been given, now our birthright. Let’s reclaim it…

Thanks for stopping in. Nope, can never seem to write shorter.  Never was good at social etiquette.