Do you remember kindergarten? Do you remember what it was all about? Shapes, letters, numbers, perhaps learning to read and to tie your shoes. Sure, those were the academics. But it was also about many intangible things. Playground dynamics. Sitting quietly. Listening patiently. Also, if you were like me, it was about learning from and respecting an authority other than my parents. If you were like my kids, it meant learning from and respecting your parent(s) in a new role. Kindergarten was a blending of the inner and outer life, the tangible and intangible, the already known and the yet to be learned. It was a big step in the direction of functioning well in the world at large. 

    Kindergarten for many is the milestone moment, the major metaphorical event when a child learns to share. And I don't just mean their favorite crayon with the kid across the table. It requires a sharing of the whole self. A sharing of time and attention, those intangible possessions that adults most cherish, on things that might not interest the child 100% of the time (recess and lunchtime yes; phonics, no). It's about sharing interests and empathy as the child attempts the monkey bars with their new best friend and then rushing to find help when the friend inevitably falls and grazes their knee. It's also about learning to trade jealousy for joy when that same best friend masters the monkey bars first. The experiences of kindergarten go a long way in laying a path and shaping the character of children. It does this in many ways through the practice of sharing, through giving of self to or for something or someone else. 

    This year I've needed to be reminded of the lessons I learned so long ago in kindergarten. I wish that as a wife, mother, daughter, and friend, that it was as simple as rolling a crayon across the table, knowing I'll get it back in a minute or two. Looking back that seems so easy, but at the time it wasn't. We always grasp tightly the things we love the most, and that emotional reflex doesn't change much as we age. The things we cherish will change, but our fierce feelings of ownership and protection won't. Back then it was a crayon, or a swing on the playground, or my attention during a lesson. Now, it's my willingness to forgive, to let go of bitterness, to continue loving people even when I don't really trust them because I've been hurt one too many times. Now it's about my willingness to do the hard thing, knowing full well how hard it truly is. And this year has been hard.

    The lessons I learned in kindergarten to be kind, do good, and share, only go so far. Ultimately it's pretty easy to ignore those admonishments and switch back to how I want to live my life. There has to be a greater reason to give up what I want for someone else. There is. And His name is Jesus. Knowing Jesus has made all the difference in my motivations and abilities to follow those simple, terribly difficult rules for life.  Knowing Jesus makes things both harder and easier. Truly knowing Jesus means following Him as my example, my Shepherd, and my Lord. And yes that means green pastures and still waters, but it also means the valley of the shadow of death. But that valley is never endless, and the deaths I experience there are never without purpose. Each day Jesus is faithfully leading me in the way that I should go, not necessarily the way I want to go. So His leading can be hard, but it is always good. 

    Of all the difficult challenges that I face, Jesus is there first. He walks the road before me, He knows the safe way through, and even if it sometimes appears to be dark and full of death, I still trust His leading. I can trust Him because I know Him to be kind and wise, loving and good. If He were merely kind and loving, He'd take me on the easier path and skirt the challenges that help me grow as a person. If He were only wise, He might set me on the right path but then walk behind me and see how I handle things for myself. But because He is all of those things all the time He leads me and never leaves me. 

    Just like in kindergarten I am still being taught to share, to let go of the things I treasure most and to trade them for something better. In kindergarten I traded crayons for goodwill and jealousy for trust and friendship. I traded my time and attention for a greater knowledge of the world. Now I trade my preferences, my comfort, my desire to protect my heart because that's what He asks of me, and I trust Him. Not blindly or stupidly. I trust Him because I know He did it first, for me. He traded His comfort, His preferences, His desire to guard His heart and body from pain - for me. I have seen the ultimate example of sharing. And so I follow Him through plentiful pastures and barren valleys, content in His leading, knowing that goodness and mercy are following me, and ultimately I will dwell in His house forever. 

-Ashley

I am not being an awesome mom during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent quarantine. There's been no extra crafting, Pintrest hasn't seen my face in who knows when, and we aren't doing any of those awesome scavenger hunts or online art classes. Do I feel guilty about this? Of course! Does that mean any of that will change? Probably not. Why not?

Because, normalcy.

Routine. Stability. Boring old run-of-the-mill day to day mundane activities. Perform, sleep, repeat.

A little background.

As a kid my life was full of abundance. Of siblings. Of church attendance (going to a Friday night Bible study was the thing to do). And an abundance of moves, and not usually the one-block over kind. We're talking new city, new church, new people, new everything, Because I was homeschooled I was not constantly adjusting to a different set of teachers or school friends, but boy did I run the gamut of Sunday School leaders and church peers. With all that moving came a lot of uncertainty. And so I gravitated to the things that were constant in my life. My parents. My siblings. My faith. And after the recent loss of my grandmother, I realized even more her role as a touch point in my life, a rock of certainty and security. Little things like how the tater tots were always served in the same melamine bowl, or the fact that we always watched Matlock and Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! were small rhythms that meant a lot to this highly emotive, introspective, at times umoored young girl.

In seventh grade, after a particularly rough move away from my best friend and into the frozen wasteland of a lake-side cabin in rural Alabama ( I promise is wasn't nearly as charming or idyllic as that sounds. It was November, it was cold, we were all lonely and miserable) I was tasked with writing an essay every day in school. I wrote a lot of ridiculous, angsty things that have since found their way to the trash can, but a few of those essays stuck around, particularly the two I wrote about my grandmother, about how I loved visiting her and the security I felt at her house. I mailed those two essays to her a couple of years ago as a thank you for what she meant to me. Before she died she made sure those essays were put back in my hands. Up to this point, I still haven't found the courage to read them. It's just a little too soon.

So because of the instability of certain aspects of my childhood, and the firm example of the goodness of sameness, I guess I've been coming to this point of cultivating routine for all of my life. I joke about being boring on purpose, but maybe there is something to that. I want my kids to generally know what to expect in their day-to-day life. To know that Jesus is the Lord of our life, that I love their dad and he loves me, and that dinner will be eaten together. 

But here's the flip side of that. I'm a follower of Jesus. And I wasn't called to mediocrity.  I was called to a cross. Every day is meant to be a death to myself as a sacrifice to God in the form of love and service to others. So are my daily, mundane offering to Him repulsive and putrid? Shouldn't I be doing more?

No. And yes. And no again.

No, because it isn't the doing that makes Him pleased with me. It's what He's done.

Yes, because He's glorious and magnificent and kind and good and worthy to be the object of every ounce of effort of everything I do.

And no, again, because the things I do already, I'm doing for Him. From the outside it looks like I'm homeschooling kids and cleaning a house and loving my husband, but it looks like that because that's what I'm called to. It doesn't look that way for everyone. God gifts His children with a variety of marvelous gifts that all work to glorify Him, for He is worthy. My gifting, at this point, is domestic, and mundane.

So at this point in the quarantine, it's pretty much business as usual. A few things are different. Due to warmer weather, we are taking more walks. Due to the quarantine, most of those take place in our neighborhood. I'm cooking more meals, and because of  a shortage of processed foods they are even more "whole food" and fresh than usual. I'm trying to be more engaged with my kids, even and especially  after a day of school with them. That's when I remember that I hang out with them not just because I'm their mom and responsible for their basic physical and emotional needs, but also because they are delightful people and it's fun spending time with them!

Maybe you are an awesome quarantine mom. If you are, kudos! Please post some pictures so I can see what fun things you've got going on. If you're more like me and working to safeguard your routine, here's a high five for you, too. You're all wonderful, beautiful people, and I'm so glad to know you. So go on and love your family in the way that God has gifted you best, and do it all for His glory. He is so, so worthy.

Boy Mom

I like spiders. But that hasn't always been true. As a child and young adult I avoided touching anything creepy, crawly, slimey, or scaley. And I didn't have time to stop and admire, much less look at bugs, unless it was to step on them swiftly and strongly. Stomp. Squish. Dead.

I'm not sure exactly when my thoughts and feelings toward insects and spiders began to change, but it was sometime in the last 8 years, after my son was born. As a boy mom I determined not to instill an irrational fear of bugs into my son. So instead of shuddering and stomping, I stooped and observed. To satisfy his curiosity I watched shows and YouTube videos and read books with him that all extolled the wonderful world of bugs. Sure, there was a good mixture of dinosaurs and construction vehicles in there as well, but who has problems with bulldozers or triceratops? I didn't need convincing on those topics. My hang ups were all those creepy legs and disturbingly crunchy shells. We aren't talking tacos here, people. But I persisted in my decision to stay chill on the bug front.

And all those factoids about legs and thoraxes and compound eyes? They began to stick. In my brain. And you know what, I began to truly see the fascinating world of insects and arachnids all around me. God put so much detail into every aspect of His creation, and this was no exception. The design of the body of a honeybee and the social structure of a hive. The fact that there are spiders that have adapted to almost any environment, and many of them don't even live in webs. The persistence, diligence, and bravery of an ant colony. This world of insects and arachnids wasn't just fascinating, it sang. It was a harmonizing strain of  the same song in my heart, the song God put within all of us, that He teaches a little more of everyday. A song of Him, and for Him, and to Him.

So now I like spiders. And insects in general. Don't get me wrong. I can't reconcile myself to the millipedes that have recently invaded my home. Nor do I hesitate to end the life of any species of roach (surely a direct product of the Fall if not direct spawn of Satan.) But for the most part I am so interested in the small but ordered world of bugs. I love to see them crawling around on my herbs and flowers, to observe the different methods of gathering nectar or pollen. To watch the stages of transformation from corpulent caterpillar to lithe and lovely butterfly.

To change is to learn. To learn is to grow. To grow is to understand. To understand is to appreciate.

Go watch a spider, and tell me what you think.