Can't We All Just Get Along?

A rare occurrence has been taking place at my house.

Like... "call the Smithsonian" kind of rare.

My kids have been getting along. Working together, asking each other's advice -- then actually listening to the advice offered.

It is a beautiful thing.

To hear your children getting along warms the cockles of  my heart (I love to toss out the word "cockles" -- you just don't get to use that every day) and ranks right up there with their decision to accept Christ in baptism, as well as watching them use one of the many gifts God has given them.

I wonder.

I wonder how God feels about his own children getting along.

How He feels when I can't see past the fact that my brother in Christ chooses to tell God he loves Him and worship a different way than I do, so dismiss my brother altogether.

... or how He feels when I can't see past which lever my sister in Christ pulls on election day or the sign she has in her yard so speak venomous words about her to others.

I wonder how He feels when I judge my sister who was raised in an abusive home, or by a single parent who worked 3 jobs to make ends meet, so she shows up at worship dressed inappropriately and doesn't speak to her husband or children the way I think she should. I wonder if He wishes that I would come alongside her and love her instead of judge, and show her a better way... since no one ever has.

I wonder how He feels about us getting along? I'm pretty sure He told us:

"I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

John 13:34,35

P.S. The littles are not my adorable doodlebugs. But they appear to be getting along. The bigs are mine on the first day of school. This is how we do "first day" pics.

Friday... Thoughts

I have posted this video here before (like many that I have posted lately). Like others, it is worth watching again.

This speaks to the value of community, particularly women in community. Women in community have led me to do things I didn't think I could, go places I didn't think I would, and achieve things I dared not even consider without such support.

I love the way this woman (Kelly Corrigan) says it. Beautiful.

Your Child's Village

originally in Abilene Families

As the initial school bells pealed this year, parents had varying emotions and approached the year with different attitudes, in different vehicles, and from various neighborhoods. However, as the paperwork filtered home, one thing bound us all together in a united brotherhood drowning in felled forestry: our loathing of the forms.

As a former educator, I recognize that (some of) the forms are a necessary evil that must be waded through. I believe that I even read somewhere that this year an effort was made to reduce the number of forms, but once I filled the same one out for athletics, band, drama, chemistry club, and my cashier at the grocery store, the effort was really lost on me.

Some of the questions on the forms stumped me, too. Questions that I know were meant to be easy: “Is Yiddish your primary language at home?” I mutter. I rant. I speak in half sentences. Whatever language that the children answer in, claim that one. I don’t know.

“Is your home a temporary living arrangement?” Well, that’s just a can of worms, isn’t it? First, we have high hopes that these people that require piles and piles of forms will move out and fill out their own forms some day. So, yes, this arrangement is temporary, Lord willin’.

Also, occasionally in church I sing a song about this earth not being my home, I’m just a-passin’ through, though I don’t believe having a heavenly home as a permanent dwelling is what the form is asking. I doubt there is even government assistance for that.

This year there was a new one that really stumped me. Next to all of the student’s contacts, you were to check a box next to the contact name if he or she was a “responsible party”. Hmmmmm. We sometimes eat popcorn for dinner and I have been known to leave my children at school forgetting it was my week for carpool. Can you really call me responsible? I checked my husband’s box.

Then, there were the blanks that make me freeze up every year. You know the ones - especially you military families that move frequently. Those dreaded “Emergency Contacts”. Not having family in town, my mind is as blank as the form before me as I consider who would drop everything to help my child were he or she to need it.

Sometimes I play Russian roulette with my cell phone and land on my dentist and my pizza place and call it good. Giving it a little more thought, I begin to realize how blessed I am.

An African proverb accurately states “It takes a village to raise a child”. While our villages today have more brick and mortar and drive-thru windows, the premise still holds true.

I consider the village that loves my family and have been our extended family here. People who have driven, housed, fed, partied, entertained, hugged, and loved my children are all on standby willing to be emergency contacts.

As a young person, I prided myself on being “fiercely independent”. Now as a not-so-young person, I realize what a handicap independence can be. Seeing myself as a member of my village I recognize the astounding value in the community that surrounds me: people and families each a different puzzle piece to complete the overall picture of my family.

Now the hard part is deciding which one to use as an emergency contact. While I do that, I shall be icing my carpal tunnel syndrome from filling out all those forms.

My Running Community -- and Still Keepin' It Real

Last weekend was one of my long runs -- 10 miles. It was awesome. Seriously. I felt SO great the whole time. Cool weather, and was fueled properly. Just good. (I'm about a month out from my next half marathon).

Today was a shorter "long run" (long runs are on Saturday -- in my head, if they are over 6 miles, they are a long long run, 6 or less is a short long run). Today was 6. And it was awful.

Woke up to GLORIOUS rain, so I slept in, knowing that I was either going to have to wait out the rain or run on the treadmill anyway. When I finally got around to running (about noon) I had only had a bowl of cereal because my stomach was kind of 'iffy'. I waited around to see if the rain would clear up -- nope --.Then I finally took some medicine for my stomach and headed to run (at the gym on the treadmill).

When my meds finally kicked in and my stomach settled, I was STARVING. In a runner, starving = no fuel and I didn't have a protein bar with me. I ran/walked for a while on the treadmill, was BEYOND mad that it didn't have the decency to rain not one little drop on the puddle in the gym parking lot (seriously Troy couldn't believe how mad I was -- but I REALLY hate running on the treadmill. REALLY).

Since it wasn't going to rain I thought I might have a better run outside. Nope. I couldn't really get going, not properly fueled, my stomach still not right, just all the way around not good.

My trainer, Ruthie, reminds me that running is like life: you have good days and bad days. Learn from the bad days, and go on. Before I had a trainer, or even a running community of friends, I would try to be a runner, but after a run like today, I would tell myself, "this just isn't for you. You're a loser at this. I don't know why you think you can do this. You should just give up." And I would.

Now I have a running community. Granted, the majority of it is virtual and online, but I see that people have bad runs... but they keep running. It started as I really got into reading Ruthie's blog. I guess she knew about grace to herself and determination -- or maybe she just liked running more than I did right away -- but I saw that Ruthie kept plugging away after illness and injury.

My running -- or attempts at running -- have been my secret before this year. I basically knew I would fail at some point and didn't want to have to 'fess up when it happened. But having a community has cheered me on and allowed me to see other people stumble, yet start over and succeed. It let me watch how successful runners are successful: by starting over when they have a bad day. "Back in the saddle" or however you want to call it -- it has kept me going.

This really isn't a running post -- it's a community post. I had to be intentional about surrounding myself with people who had the same goals that I did, people that I could see how they handled setbacks and how they achieved goals. That is true for any goal I would want to achieve -- including getting to heaven.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1