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To Parents of Kids Returning to School

Posted in FAMILY, tagged #backtoschool, #dontoverschedule, #kidsneedfreetime, #livebetweenthemargins, #lookforwonder, #margin, #toparentsofkidsreturningtoschool on September 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »

In our neck of the woods, today is the day!

The day that summer break ends and school begins.

The new clothes are donned, the lunch kit doesn’t yet have that funky odor, the knapsack packed with binders, pencils and calculators (as one who spends her work days helping students with math, please buy them a calculator if they are in high school … there are only so many one can acquire in her desk drawer).

There is excitement in the air, as all things are new, fresh.

With this beginning of school there are so many other clubs, teams, lessons etc. that are also resuming.

Now is when students and parents are signing up for these extracurricular activities, with great anticipation of competitions, skills development and new learning.

And that is a good and fun part of all of these activities,

but …

Parents, there is something else that kids need. They need it this school year, but they also need it so that they grow to be healthy, well-balanced adults.

It’s margin … and it has little to do with money investments (although … there is certainly an investment angle to it).

Margin is best described in comparison to the margins we leave when writing on a piece of paper. We do not begin writing at the very top left corner of a piece of paper and continue to the bottom right. Instead we write in the middle, leaving a space, a margin, around our writing.

This is good writing practise … it is also a good life practise.

Parents, consider ensuring that there is margin around the to-dos in your kids days. Not just margin for sleeping and eating, but margin for exploration, discovery, wonder. Green therapy (being outdoors), playing board games together, reading a book, baking cookies, playing road hockey, taking the pooch for a walk.

These are the elements in a day that can refill their cups, instill the practise of life learning, remind them of one greater than them. It can give their brains time to rest, time to grow.

This margin is not to sit and just stare, solo, at a screen. It is time in their schedules to explore, to breath, to be nourished by the greater things, the things that lead us to contemplate, to ponder, to talk to God.

This margin will actually give your kids more … more energy, more productivity, more creativity, more capacity to learn, to live.

You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!
Haggai 1:6

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Your New Day is Dawning

Posted in Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #afreshstart, #anewday, #neweerymorning, #riseshine, #withoutgodthereisnolightwithinus, #yournewdayisdawning on September 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

It’s early on a Sunday morning, of a long weekend, that marks the end of summer in so many ways.

I hear the Wonder dog shake his sleep from his head, then the wet of his tongue on my arm, hanging over the side of the bed. Blech!

I reach to the other side of the bed, empty. This summer has been one of trading places. He often rising before me. So I tap his side of the bed, the known invitation for my buddy to leap up onto the bed with me. I sense him searching, sniffing and looking for my face to lick. It’s his way of saying, hey lady, I don’t have indoor cammode, I need to let out for my relief.

I lift the covers higher, turning to the other side, my face safe from his slobbery expression of love … ok, it’s really his urgency to get me to let him out, but I am the interpreter of this dog.

He settles, a loud sigh, fully communicating his impatience.

I open only one eye, gauging the time of day by the light peeking around the curtains and the sounds of cars passing by. I reckon it is near six. I relax, sleep calling me back to it’s magical place.

This is so odd for me, this slow morning wake up. I can recall mornings as a child, awakening in my childhood bedroom, sun peeking in around the window blinds and my heartbeat racing to start the day. I would leap out of bed, afraid to miss out on one moment of the day (especially if it was a weekend or holiday).

Rise! Shine! Your new day is dawning. The glory of the LORD shines brightly on you.
Isaiah 60:1

That verse describes my typical morning awakening so well. It is as if I had an urgency to start the day. The time on the clock is redundant, it could be 6am, or 4:30am (eye roll). Either way, once my lungs have taken in the deep morning breath, sleep is no more, for I know that my calling is to be awake.

That is similar to the call in Isaiah. Though it were written to Jerusalem, it applies to each of us. We cannot bring the light of dawn, for it is this morning light that is our light. Another way to say it is that we have no light within us, except for the light that God gives. Sure, we might be able to muddle around, using our human instincts, but without the light that comes from Christ, we are not seeing clearly.

The thing is, our walking in the dark, we have chosen this. We chose to muddle through the dark, though each morning we are reminded of the call of God, through the light of the dawn.

This morning light also reminds us of our daily opportunity to start over, fresh. Like the oft quoted words of Anne Shirley, “tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.” This daily rise of the light is our morning whisper to choose to live in His light, to shed our pre-occupation with the false illusion of our own good, our own sufficiency.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23

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The Last Hurrah

Posted in life, tagged #dontrush, #labordayweekend, #savoursummer, #summersend, #thelasthurrah on September 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This is it … the last hurrah of summer.

This Labor Day weekend marks the end of the freedoms of summer.

The freedom of school break, summer vacations, daylight that stretches into the late evening, bare feet, BBQs with friends and family, beaches, lakes and swimming pools.

There is a vast mourning of the end of this most refreshing season on the calendar and in the atmosphere around us. A sadness in the end of this most life-giving time of year.

So, this weekend, we try to squeeze out every last drop of joy. We pile into our vehicles and hit the roads for a last hurrah of camping, or hoteling, or visiting friends and family, or simply sitting on the porch with a good book and an ice cold drink. We stay up late, sleep long. If the rains fall we will cozy up with Netflix or venture to the theatre, meet friends for a coffee or lunch.

There is almost a reverence to this weekend. There is a sense that this weekend, more than any other, we need to be present, be good stewards of our time, stop and smell the roses.

Though the PSL (pumpkin spice latte) crowd has moved on into autumn tastes and thoughts, it is still summer. It is still the season for wearing shorts and tank tops, watering our gardens and patio lunches

This weekend is a reminder that maybe, we rush too often to the next thing.

This is summer’s last hurrah, walk, don’t run … for it is worth savouring.

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before the rooster crows

Posted in Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #apostlepeter, #beforetheroostercrows, #denialoutoffear, #denyingchrist, #liveoutourrelationshipwithchrist, #petersdenials on August 31, 2021| 2 Comments »

As I sit at my desk I can hear him … off in the distance, somewhere to the east of us, a rooster crows with wild abandon.

When I hear him, my mind ofter recites this, with each call :

before the rooster crows …

My rooster neighbor crows just before 6am, so if Peter were to have denied Jesus three times that day, before the rooster crows … well, it must have been really easy for him to have denied his Lord, three times, before dawn.

What was Peter thinking?

Jesus had pre-warned him of his impending denials, so he knew they might/would occur. One would think that he would be prepared and wouldn’t fall into a trap of saying what he did not want to say! It is like his tongue deceived him.

Have you ever done that … say what isn’t true, what you didn’t want to say?

Once I had an experience where my brain and tongue were not working in co-operation. I had a medical appointment, via phone. I am not a phone person … never have been. Even as a teenager, I dislike phone communication. So, knowing this about myself, I made notes for the appointment.

When it was time for the appointment, with my list at my hand, I was asked questions … questions that I had written answers to on my paper … right beside me. One of the questions (probably the most important) was, “how has this issue been?” And I answered “a firm okay” … but on my paper I’d written, “rotten”. Right there, I denied my own reality, with not so much as a glance to that paper beside me.

When telling a friend about this she said, maybe, as a people pleaser, I instinctively responded with what I thought my doctor wanted to hear. Maybe I was so eager to have progress to share that I instinctively fabricated it.

If it was that easy for me to deny my own health situation, I think I can understand Peter’s denials before dawn. For, in his case, his denials came out of fear for himself. They were most primitive, for his denials originated in a fear for his life.

The thing is the rooster crows every morning … we have this daily reminder of Peter’s denial of his association with Jesus. We may not be asked directly, or daily about our relationship with Christ, but we still have opportunity to live it. We live our relationship with him in how we love (or do not), in how we use our resources (time, money), in how we behave towards others (in our neighborhoods, in businesses, workplaces, families), in how we think verses what we say (“as one thinks, so is he” Proverbs 23:7).

We all have daily opportunities to live out our association with Jesus … or deny it.

I love how the Contemporary English Version writes this verse (Matthew 26:34):

Jesus replied, “I promise you before a rooster crows tonight, you will say three times that you don’t know me.”

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It’s a Vapor

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #itsavapor, #lifeisagift, #lifeisshort, #meaningless, #praiseinthestorm, #rejoice, #thisistheday on August 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »

It’s a vapor, a mist.

We work, and strive, and plan, and acquire, and do.

Yet, it will end … in a breath.

Life is brief, valuable, unexpected and its conclusion is unforeseen.

Do we awaken in our mornings with thanks, joy, with the appreciation that we have another day?

Do we greet the rising (or risen) sun with awareness that this day, this very moment is a gift and opportunity?

This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

– Psalm 118:24

Maybe today is one that we know will be filled with tough stuff … pain, sadness, tough decisions and actions … and we are still to rejoice?

Yes …

The Matthew Henry commentary for this verse tells us,

The duty which the Lord has made, brings light with it, true light. The duty this privilege calls for, is here set forth; the sacrifices we are to offer to God in gratitude for redeeming love, are ourselves; not to be slain upon the altar, but living sacrifices, to be bound to the altar; spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise, in which our hearts must be engaged.

This rejoicing is our sacrifice … and sacrifice it might very well be for some of us today. Somehow if today’s sun rises on a day are not looking forward to, then we understand even better the sacrifice it is to pray and praise … when our hearts are heavy, when our souls ache.

The thing is … we only know that we have this very day, this moment.

You do not even know what will happen tomorrow!
What is your life?
You are a mist that appears for a little while
and then vanishes.

-John 4:14

Let us rejoice today.

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Just Ordinary

Posted in life, tagged #hohum, #jjheller, #justodrinary, #memories, #ofdinaryday on August 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Ordinary … synonymous for same old, uneventful, boring.

We humans love our adrenaline-filled, exciting, exceptional special events and days. We plan for them, count down for them, save money for them, fill our social media of images of them. They are the events of life!

Something that being 50 something does is that the event of life fade a bit more, as a longing begins to settle into our souls for memories of

just ordinary days.

As a mom, of course my mind goes to memories of breakfasts giggling over the snap, crackle, pop of cereal, or times snuggled in bed reading “Old Hat New Hat” for the bazillionth time, or driving in the van singing “This is the Song that Never Ends” as loud as we could with littles.

but …

there are just so many ordinary days … and I just cherish them all!

I recently was introduced to a song I was unfamiliar with and it seeped into my mind and had me playing it in my thoughts for hours til I just simply had to sit down and think some thoughts, to sit and remember …

ordinary day.

Memories of walking with my parents, swinging on their hands on an old dirt road.

Of sitting with my legs crossed, watching TV, under the quilt my grandmother was ‘kilting’ in her livingroom.

Of sitting in a classroom, in high school, watching notes being past across the aisles.

Of walking in a field, on a summer day, the smell of freshly cut hay filling my lungs.

Of driving in a little car with my husband, holding hands.

Of making a meal, and the taste of the savory flavors.

Of music playing down the hallway, and sneaking a peak at littles dancing in their bedroom.

Of a quiet room, filled with our three, noses firmly in their books.

Of laughter on a lunch break at work.

Of bowing my head in church, along with others, as we go to our life source together.

Of chatting with a stranger in the produce section of the grocery store.

Of lacing my runners to go for a walk.

So, so many

ordinary days.

These ordinary days … they are the ones that make up the majority of our days. They are the ones that rise in our memories when loved ones pass into the foreverland of eternity. They are the ones that make life worth living.

Maybe, these ordinary days are the ones we should look to value most.

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To Parents of Adult Children

Posted in FAMILY, WONDER, tagged #cheerleader, #encouragement, #encourager, #stayinyourkidscourt, #supporter, #toparentsofadultchildren on August 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

One of the best things in my life have been those people who are a step ahead of me.

Talking to those married a few years, when we were newlyweds. Chatting with dog owners, when we were considering adding a dog to our household (who am I kidding … when I was considering adding a dog to our household). Getting parenting advice at various stages prior to our kids entering those stages.

To glean, not just from books, but from real life people, who have been deep in the trenches of life is to have found gold.

Recently, as I sat with a gem of a woman, who is a wife, a mom, grandmother and fellow follower of Christ, I asked her what she sees her role to be, as a mom to her adult kids.

She barely paused,

“encourager”

So, I came home and looked at the Bible to find uses of the word encourage in its pages.

If I were to say who I think is the best example of an encourager in the Word of God, I would have to say it is Paul. As he spoke and wrote to the various churches, encouragement is frequently on his lips.

His example of encourager is not one of Pollyanna, sugar-coated, I have plans that won’t harm you sort of encourager. His example is that of cheering others on, even though he is in prison. Caring for and sustaining the churches with his words.

He encouraged whether they were on track or they forgot to board the train.

There is no way to explain how significantly he was motivated to encourage these churches, except to say that he loved …

he loved God and he loved those who God had given him to lead in how to follow the example of Jesus.

It is no different for us, who have children … adult or littles.

But for those of us with adult children, our role is different. With young children (still under our roof) we are teaching, correcting, nurturing, looking after basic needs, etc. But, when they move out to form lives independent of ours, we no longer direct them, for that is what independence is about (though, we do cherish their returns and sharing of their lives adventures with us).

We are to be encouragers … as I write those words, I flashback to when I was their ages. Those twenty-something years are exciting ones, years of trying new things, establishing who you want to be, the direction you want to go. They are years of confusion and self doubt too.

Lets face it, at any age of adulthood (or any age of life) we need cheerleaders, encouragers, someone in our courts who we know will be there … whether we are winning … or losing.

Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, says :

“Therefore encourage one another
and build each other up …”

Thanks friend, for encouraging me to be an encourager to my adult kids.

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When they Look at Me

Posted in WONDER on August 22, 2021| 2 Comments »

It’s being a mom that dreams are made of … my dreams.

I am blessed to have that title, that name, identity.

I am so very aware that not all have been gifted in this way …

for a time I thought I would miss out on this privilege,

that I would need to accept life with this dream only in my … dreams.

Being mom is not always easy, heart-warming or appreciated.

Yet, women usually jump in with both feet … more than once.

I am thankful for, and do not take for granted that my three

still call, text and message me,

that they tell me their joys and sorrows,

that they still even periodically ask me how I am doing.

I know

that they know

that I love them.

but …

though this feels so good,

though it is an area where I can say,

I did what I set out to do

I pray that when they look at me …

they don’t see me.

I pray that when they feel loved by me,

when they need to touch base with me,

when they have a favor to ask,

when they are received into my house,

my arms …

When they look at me,

looking back at them …

I pray they see Him.

“I want to leave a legacy,
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to you enough?
To make a mark on things
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace
Who blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy.”

Legacy – Nicole Nordeman

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Strong Shoulders

Posted in The Kids, WONDER, tagged #aaronicblessing, #encouragement, #strengthandgentleness, #strongshoulders on August 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This is the time in the year, in this annual season,

when you are tired, my child.

I see it on your face, hear it in your voice …

you carry it on your shoulders.

Your shoulders …

they were what I noticed first when you were born.

They were unlike those of your sisters.

I remember marvelling at how straight and strong they appeared.

You were a long anticipated gift from God.

Each day of your pre-birth life prayed over … for the next day was not guaranteed.

Each movement was cherished.

Your birth, peaceful and unhurried.

unhurried … you have, from your beginnings, had your own timeline.

Then you burst into this life with robust cries, fists clenched and man shoulders to boot.

You were embraced, kissed, held (and had your eyes poked by your adoring sisters).

A boy born to three motherers and a father … who were so thankful to have you with us.

Your heart is soft. Your shoulders are strong.

As a child you played with little figures of super heros, watched their movies and shows, dressed as them at Halloween. You have grown into one who is bothered, grieved by injustice.

You want to make right the wrongs. You desire to fix broken pieces. You yearn to be personally involved in seeking justice. Your eye is ever on the ideal, what is best.

This is who you are, in the most natural way.

May you use these gifts of strength and gentleness in your whole life. May you seek to find where God can best use this combination of strengths in our world.

Know that you have been loved since your very beginnings.

Don’t ever forget the gift that you already are to so many.

The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.

It occurred to me recently that we tell our children their stories when they are littles, curled up in the safety of our laps, but maybe … just maybe, they need to hear their stories even more when they are grown, but still in need of the security and encouragement of their own coming into existence. Maybe a glimpse of their past will give strength for their future. Or, as fellow blogger, Carolyn Collar, says, maybe “God can help us find new meanings to old stories.“

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Fairy Tales

Posted in The Kids, WONDER, tagged #aaronicblessing, #breathe, #encouragement, #fairytales, #lifesavers, #striving on August 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Once upon a time …

that is how fairy tales begin …

and they end with a perfectly tied up bow, with the assurance that they all lived happily ever after.

Leaving the reader with a contented sigh.

My dear, your story very much started with a once upon a time beginning … kind of.

As our second, first pregnancy, your beginnings were shrouded in fear … but they were also blanketed in anticipation, hope and desire for your life to be part of ours.

From the first moment we were aware of your presence, we prayed for you (realistically, that began well before any knitting needles were picked up (Psalm 139:13)).

Though there were warning signs that elevated our fears and brought us to our knees, as I look back now, I see you were quite comfortable in your own little womb. Perhaps it was the aquatic environment, the warmth, the ability to set your own schedule.

When you emerged you did so with a loud battle cry, alerting us to your presence, which filled us with such relief and thankfulness that overflowed from our hearts down our cheeks.

You are a life striver, a life saver … I think this is why your life has been one of helping others.

From teaching swimming to littles who were fearful of getting their toes wet, to helping those whose life is in danger because of substance addictions, you have spurred others to strive.

You have literally helped the same ones who have spat in your face, called you horrible names and threatened your life.

Life saving has become part of you, whether in the swimming pool, having to call social services when parent’s drug abuses are endangering their children, or while administering Narcan in the McDonald’s drive thru.

The thing is … the life saver often gives their all to helping others … leaving little resources for themselves.

And … maybe it is time to direct your life saving skills and strengths back toward yourself.

After years of health struggles, that continue still today, you are rather beat up and bruised. Rather worn and wounded.

You’ve heard that often used metaphor “put on your own mask first before assisting others.”

Girl, it is the time to catch your breath, to inhale the life-preserving oxygen that is central to our human creation.

Breathe deeply.

For you have been so loved, so wanted … you were our own once upon a time,

since before your first breath.

The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.

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