I am fortunate to be able to work from home, though I have yet to see much of the actual payoff. I am working furiously to meet a writing deadline, this week being the toughest. I have never written and revised so much, so fast, so intensely in my life. My boys are my background music. I gave them a pep talk this morning on how they are not apart from my vocation of words, it is their work and their ministry too and I cannot do it without them. We talked of ways we could encourage each other today and serve one another. We read the words of Jesus and came up with examples. And I prayed fervently for a spirit of peace to descend upon our home and a perseverance this is beyond my human ability.
I set Lars up with a list of schoolwork in his room and set Anders up with his list at the dining room table. Then I set myself up in the living room and we worked all day. Sure, there were interuptions of hamsters, vocabulary questions, spilling crayons and an incident of poop on the floor, but all in all I am on schedule with my work and they felt loved and valued all day. We ended with a pizza picnic outside under their tree, the dusky sky poking up through the palms. The weather here is perfect. Now, Ben is home and I am off all other duty, back to work.
All that to say that I am grateful for my little team. I am learning that as a woman and a mother my work is only enhanced by their presence, my children’s spiritual leadership in my life powerful as I submit to service and a gentle word here and there. It is the growing of a redemptive community, a little section of the church, a small corner where sometimes the grace of God is so tangible you could bite into it.
PS. IN everything give thanks…not for, but in.
ANGELA BLYCKER 