Pass the baton

He was at least 90 years old, running up the hill by our home, holding a bag of grapefruit in one hand and a baton in the other.  Lean and long and determined, with a highly decorated Veterans cap on his head.  I'm guessing this ancient warrior had run down to the farmers stand this morning, down to the corner to grab his breakfast, and was now on his way home to cut it open and sprinkle sugar over each segmented slice.  

But it was the baton that caught my attention.  12 inches of PVC piping.  Maybe he was anticipating a mountain lion or a pack of coyotes still up after a fruitless night of hunting.  And he was ready.  This man who probably fought in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam, now running at a snail's pace, all sinewy and alert, still ready for an attack.  Back and forth the baton traveled, as he pumped his arms, cased in thin flesh.  Back and forth.

And I traveled past him in my Dodge Durango, up the hill to my home.  Pumping my own baton, back and forth.  Having dropped two kids off at school and returning now to teach the third at our dinning room table.  The laundry piled high, the refrigerator in need of cleaning, the sound of conference calls slipping out from under the door to my husband's home office.  Swinging my club like I'm entering a war zone, ready for battle.

But I'm not.

I'm not.

Not.

Not in a battle.  Though challenges await.  No one's heart is bent on attacking me.  And I think on the man who's known real war, and anticipates it each new day.  I don't want to run that way.  Just because there have been challenges in the past.  I don't want to enter my home swinging like today holds a fight rather than a houseful of blessings and loved ones.

This thing in my hand is not my protective weapon to club a kid with learning challenges down.  This is not a tool of defense to use against my spouse.  This is not a bludgeoning stick to inflict pain, so desperate to protect myself from the same.  The baton in my hand is the baton of a runner not a warrior.  A runner in a long distance relay race, because I don't run it alone.

And the image of the old man running on rail thin legs, pumping his arms with a battle-ax in hand, drove me to my knees in the garage just now.  "Lord, help me not to swing it hard in a posture of offense or defense, but swing it joyfully knowing that I'm running this race with you.  Running this race in the power of Your Spirit each day, up the hill both ways sometimes.

It's the start of another week, dear friends.  The beginning of another race, or another leg in the ceaseless marathon we call life.  But it's not a battle.  So repurpose with me those swinging arms and the baton in your hand.  Repurpose your mind, and put it on right thinking.  Swing hard and run fast and look forward; not to avoid the dangers coming against you from without and within, but to swing and to pump and to breathe heavy in your mad dash to Him.

Pass the baton in exchange for His strength; pass it early on in this new day and new week, that He might run the longest stretches.  Pass the baton in exchange for His perspective on life and love and each heart in our homes today.

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

Question:  What's in your hand today?  A club ready to fight or a baton to be passed?  Let's cheer one another on!

My Out of the Box Child - part 3 of "knowing our children"

Driving to Grandma's house listening to the classical radio station, with all three boys in the back of the car.  The oldest, with nose in a book.  The youngest, unsnapping his buckle to wiggle out of a sweaty tee-shirt.  And that middle child of mine listening to the throbbing rhythm of something by Vivaldi, Lego mini-figures in his lap.  I watch him in the rearview mirror throughout the first movement; his face scrunched up, intent. "If this song were a story, what would be happening right now?"  I ask.

It's a familiar game and doesn't take him more than a moment to reply.

"There's this old man, all alone, dying in the desert.  He hasn't had water in days and he knows the end is near.  Now, right here, you hear how the music is getting so slow and sad?  Well, right now he's reaching up to heaven, and the sun's beating down.  He takes his last breath, and falls to the ground."

My first-born stops reading, looks up at me and smiles.  He smiles the way I smile at their Dad when I see the youngest hauling branches up the hill; the way I smile when I hear him play his harmonica.  All this smiling because we're knowing one another.  That's what makes our ragamuffin group of individuals a family, like the intricate melodies in Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  Knowing one another so well.

And it's happening in your home too.  With the unique personalities you call children.  Waking up to their individuality; more completely who they are than who they were the day before.  As they grow into their skin.  And you're there watching the magic work its way out.

Of all my children, this one is the most captivating to watch. Because he's working it out in such creative ways, with scotch tape and costumes. Crying over the boxes he stacked together, so sure that when he added paint the cardboard would magically become a living robot.

But boxes are just boxes.

The problem is that this child of mine doesn't know about boxes. The kind of boxes people live inside of.  The sort that confines our thinking. Those we can't step out of because we like things comfortable, predictable.  But this middle-miracle I call my son, doesn't just live outside of the box... he's never known a box!  And the most gorgeous part of all is that he's perfectly happy with who he is!  Out of the box, creative, middle him!

My husband and I are daily growing more comfortable with who he is as well.  Because for a long time we tried to fit him into the boxes our culture values.  Sports.  Cool clothes.  Pushing him to be comfortable within the four walls of a school house, when walls are so like boxes.  But we're learning together.  By God's grace and our child's stubborn commitment to be who he is, we're slowly coming out of our own box to enjoy him there.  The way he is.  Fearfully and wonderfully made.  My out of the box child.  With all his glorious confident uniqueness.

Today I am wrapping up this short series on knowing our children, and hope that you've found yourself inspired to delight in the unique people God has given you, there in your home.  I'm not perfect, I fail miserably as I mother these three.  Often.  But they are the souls I get to wake up to new mercies with each day.

I wish this blog were more than a blog, but a play-date where we could sit poolside as the children play together.

Wouldn't that be something?

Wouldn't that be something!

Knowing our children - part 2

Family movie night just ended and the boys are splashing in the jacuzzi with their dad.  But I'm still leaking, deep heart tears from my eyes.  

The last time I watched Rudy I was 19; so full of dreams, so much the underdog running out onto the field of life.  It inspired me then, but tonight my heart beats to the dreams of three little men; their butts lined up in a row on the orange couch.  FAMILY written on the area rug at their feet, covering the ground between us and the TV screen.

Halfway through the movie our middle boy dripped chocolate ice cream on that rug and I ran for a rag and mopped it up quick.  Then the movie went on, just like our lives, so quickly with children under the roof; mopping up messes and barely getting through the practical moments of mothering to catch the dreams beginning to stir in their hearts.

Once our boys were dry again and in their PJ bottoms, (because I've heard that until they're 12 a summertime swim is as good as a shower), my husband and I called them back to the couch.  We began our family meeting with, "We want each one of you to take a moment and think about what you want to be when you grow up.  Maybe it's something that will take years and years of hard work to achieve.  Maybe, like Rudy, everyone will tell you that you'll never make it!  But if you could do anything... what would it be?"

The younger two were wiggly and giggly, punchy from that late night scoop of frozen sugar, and maybe not quite ready for such weighty conversations.   So I sent them to bed, and thought of the sign hanging in the tree fort their daddy built them:

"Always be who you are,

unless you can be batman.

Then always be Batman!"

I am sure those two fell asleep dreaming of Batman.  But that older boy, now 10, stayed with us.  After a minute he said what I knew he would.

"I want to be a professional guitar player."

Lucky for him he has some natural ability,

so we talked about dreams,

and started to set some goals.

   

We're sending our other kids to a private school this year, at least that's the plan, but our big guy is home-schooled.  Which means we have the freedom to individualize his learning to include goals that will help him achieve his longterm dreams.  For example, this year his dad and I told him that he must master 4 songs, on at least two instruments each (guitar, vocals, drums, harmonica, piano...) And when he does, we'll pay for him to go into a real recording studio to lay 'em down!

" I don't homeschool my children to protect them from the world, I do it to give them the world." -Monica Leigh @ Pixel Perfect

In other words, homeschooling allows us to tailor our children's education around their unique passions and strengths. But it takes knowing our children.

His Faith

One other thing I know to be uniquely God woven and true in the heart of this child is his innate passion for God's Word. It's kind of crazy, really. Don't put me on any pedestal.  I read all the stuff Christian parents should do to help cultivate this love for the Bible in the hearts of their children, but we haven't done any of it consistently. Or well, truth be told.  I'm usually grumpy when I finally do coral our boys to read the Bible together. Yet still, when I go to tuck him into bed, there He is with his Bible spread open. Reading that story of David and Goliath for the millionth time! Looking up, he says, "Here's my favorite part, Mama, 'Then David asked, who is this uncircumcised fellow who dares defy the army of the living God?'"  And he smiles.

Holding his future with open hands

As we craft time into his studies for Music and Bible Study, I'm challenged to hold his future with open hands.  I don't know if he will go the traditional route of a four year university like we did.  He may be drawn to a Music Conservatory or a Bible College.  And I'm feeling a stir in my heart, readying me for something different than I would orchestrate for him.  But master planning is God's job, not ours.  Ours is to know them well, and help them see the bullseye their creator has staged for them.   Let's commit to know them, that we might send them flying, straight as arrows, to hit the center of God's glorious plan for each little life.

 For (they) are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for (them) to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

*One last aside - Sweet Mamas, I am by no means saying that homeschooling is the only way to faithfully carry out this knowledge. It is just our current way of doing it for our one of ours. Another of our other children clearly needs a traditional classroom setting to help him prepare for the special good works that lie ahead of him.

Grace, Learning Challenges, and The Short Bus

"Mama rode the short bus..."

Sounds like a "Your Mama" joke, but it's no joke,  cause this Mama did.  Ride the short bus to school.

The short bus arrived early for the students who needed a little extra help with basic reading and writing.  I was on that bus, along with the ESL crew and other "slow kids."  We listened to Peter Rabbit and the Briar Patch, wearing puffy pleather earphones, turning the page when the recording when "Ding."  Then the school bell went "Brrring", and the average and smart joined us for the rest of the day.

Some time after lunch I'd get pulled again... for speech therapy.  So there I was, the girl who stuttered when reading aloud, who struggled through her multiplication table, and couldn't say an R or L to save her life.  That was me, the one who almost repeated fourth grade.

Then Middle School was a puddle of Cs, except for the D of my bra size, which was even more embarrassing than my lousy grades.  But somehow I managed to survive that too.  And by the time I hit High School my bra size went down, and my grades went up.

The change in size had more to do with losing my baby fat than anything else, but the grades I attribute entirely to my poetry closet - a cube shaped space behind a narrow door in my room.  In that closet, decorated with pictures of the ocean, I wrote a love song to River Phoenix.  And in that closet I learned to pray.  And in that closet I read God's Word in my Precious Moments Bible.  And as I did, there in that closet, I started to embrace who I was.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Me.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

(Psalm 139:13-14)

Now here I am, on the other side of the short bus, many years past Elementary School, Jr. High, High School, and my little girl bedroom with a canopy bed and that poetry closet.  Having since graduated College Summa Cum Laude, worked successfully as an actress, married a loving man, and birthed three baby boys.

But my highest achievement is something I NEVER had to earn.  It was God's sweet Saving Love, through Grace.  Not because of my wits or my charm, my grades, income, or which bus I rode upon.  It was simply that God gave me the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the mind to perceive...

His.  Great. Love. For. Me.

And that Salvation truth is the bus I take today,

it is the ride that can take us all the way to Heaven for an eternity.

No grades can earn that bus ticket.  It's free.

And that Grace is my identity today,

covering and displacing the insecurities of my youth.

And I know, in the deepest, most honest parts of me, I would choose the gift of this grace over a high IQ and AP courses for my children any day!  But here's my awful confession:  Sometimes I forget.  I forget how God can use the stuttering Moses.  And I forget how God looks at the David heart.  And I forget how Grace applies, when I start judging, labeling, even shaming my boys for their own learning challenges.

The one who can't focus, and the one who's behind, and the other who suddenly lost every bit of knowledge he learned last year.  So I harp and wag my finger, as though the nagging will increase their smarts.  Then huff and walk away when the little one can't remember how to count by 2s, and the middle-est can't remember 9x7, and the oldest won't sit still to have a deep conversation with me about his summer reading.

I know a therapist could have a field day with this post!  But I don't need any professional to tell me this:

The grace I received, is my legacy to pass down.  As much as their speech impediments and reading challenges may have come from my side of the gene pool, so grace and love are mine to impart as well.

So tomorrow, before I bring them all my grace-forgetting tendencies, I will climb back into the quiet space of my heart and mind, so very much like my poetry closet, and remember again that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and so are they.

God has wonderful things in store for each one of our children... which may or may not include a full-ride ticket to an Ivy League school.  But I know without a doubt that every good thing God prepared for my boys will come to pass.

The timing

and the blooming

and the grace-believing harvest

belong to Him...

Bouncing between homeschool and private education

My classmates and I bounced on green vynl school bus benches all the way to the Mission in San Juan Capistrano.  Fourth grade is California History with Native Americans, the Gold Rush, Sacramento Government, and California Poppies.  And fourth grade is the mural in Mrs. Nelson's class.  It covered the length of the room, and I was in charge of the Redwood Forest. Last year my home schooled kid and I were going to cover one of our own walls with a similar map.  Just me, my fourth grader, and a pile of colored tissue paper.  But instead of bouncing together, side by side, mission to mission, we found ourselves bouncing between homeschool and private school.  And so he traveled the California coastline through another teacher's lesson plans.  Because my plans didn't happen.

So I took a deep breath and exhaled faith as we made a new plan... only to hit another bump, and bounce back home again near the end of the school year. And my other two bounced a bit as well.

We bounced on bumps, bumps like diagnosis' that are easier to label than understand.  We bounced on ADHD and impulsivity.  Another child bounced from Aspergers and landed on "gifted".  And the third boy bounced from proximity, like when one child rolls into a ball in the middle of the trampoline and all the other children jump jump jump, and he goes flying.

Bouncing from label to label, from school to school, is tough.  Tough on the children and tough on my pride, I'm coming to realize.  But in the end, here's the humble truth...  I'm just a mom, trying to do right with what we've been dealt, by the hand of a kind God.  But still, bouncing around is sort of, well...  embarrassing.

Yeah, by the time fourth grade came to a close, I wanted to hide beneath my pile of unused California History lessons, but instead I tapped into brave and grabbed hold of hard.  And decided not to apologize to anyone; not to the kids and not to my family, and not to the readers who witnessed our game of educational pinball. Because I was doing the best I could.

And so are you.

And there's grace in that.

Grace for one another and grace enough to extend ourselves;

One day at a time, one child at a time.  One bounce at a time.

So instead of apologizing for the bumpiness of our lives, I decided to simply live with my boys, in each moment, the best I could.  And every time we bounced from school to school, I took them to the beach 10 times; and for every trip to the beach, I kissed their sandy shoulders and rosy cheeks one thousand million trillion times. Shrugging my own sun kissed shoulders when people exclaimed, "You're back here again at our school?  With which child this time?  I thought you were going to..."

Sending my kids to play, I look into the inquisitive eyes of all who question me and say, "It's messier than I thought it was going to be.  But each bump has bounced us closer to one another, and closer to the place God wants us to be most of all...

Right.  In.  His.  Hand.

It's not about private school,

public, charter, or homeschool.

It's the school of dependency,

one faith filled step at a time.

Fall is just around the bend.  And it's not as simple as the school across the street was growing up.  K - 12, and yearbooks lined up in a row, like a complete set of perfectly matching teeth.  We're a ragamuffin band of personalities, trying to meet the needs of radically individual boys.  So this year, this blessed year, one kiddo is going to be home schooled while the other two start another new private school close to our home.  Lord willing, we'll make it through without any big bumps.  But if we do bump, we'll do it together.  As a family.  Without apology.

As a family, looking for Native American arrow heads

at Cabrillo Point, in Northern California.

God is so good to give me the eyes to see that today.  Today.  Because there are still moments on other days when I feel a little embarrassed, wishing we were steady and simple.  But, dear friends, we don't have to be.  God is steady as a rock, immovable.  And our home is built on Him.  God is sovereign above all the ages, and all the changes, all the questions, all the bumps and bruises, and kisses that soothe.

God is the ultimate teacher.  And His lesson plans are never thwarted.

From this homeschool, private school, public school bouncing Mama,

To the rest of you, simply doing the best you can with what you've been given:

May Peace, and Grace, and brand new Mercies be yours today!