Ocean Wanderings

lost in a world
of dreamlike exsistence
wispy tendrils of fog
giding by in a swirl
clinging to my memories
like a seahorse's tail
curling an anchor
to trap me
in the past

One-sided Conversation

It's 5:40.
Where are you?
I'm at Starbucks.
Did I mention it's p.m.?
People come in and out.
Are they planning on a late Friday night?
They order their drinks.
Would you like anything to eat with that?
Scones and muffins are not exactly dinner fare.
So what am I doing here?
Sipping a birthday coffee,
          drying my pedicure,
                    watching people,
                              writing,
                                        killing time.
Why would I kill time?
It's too precious to violently put to death--never resurrected.
But where else would I go?

A Heart of Thanksgiving

In First Thessalonians 5:16-18, the Bible tells us to “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  When the kids learn it for Thanksgiving, they memorize, “...in everything give thanks…” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (and I must add that hearing a 4-year-old say Thessalonians is one of the cutest things ever).  Then we practice giving thanks.  And for children who are naturally self-centered, it does take practice.  If we were honest, most of us as adults are still practicing. 

In class we think of all the things in our lives that we can thank God for, and then we do it throughout the day.  We look for things we can thank other people for, and then we do it throughout the day.  I challenge families to see how many times they can meaningfully say “thank you” in one day.

This is not part of a manners curriculum that all preschoolers need to learn.  It is part of the spiritual development that all Christians need to learn.  I have often heard people say that they are searching for God’s will for their lives.  That is wonderful as He does have a specific plan and purpose for each one of us.  However, these verses already tell us a very specific part of God’s will for our lives: spread joy, keep an open conversation with God going throughout the day, find something to be thankful for no matter what is happening around you.  We may not be able to open the Bible and find a roadmap for the next ten years of our lives, but if we put into practice what we do read in there, I have a feeling we would be amazed at the results.

I’ll keep you updated as to how our little hearts of thanksgiving are coming along.  I would encourage you to start practicing thanksgiving now if you haven’t already—and keep it up long after the season is over.

Shortcut to Normal

I laugh everytime I see that desktop icon.  As if there is a shortcut.  Most of us spend our lives just trying to be "normal"--to just fit in.

But what is normal?  We know those who are not normal--the people we label weird for not blending.  We know those who have surpassed normalcy and have been given permission to no longer maintain the status quo.  But what about the rest of us--those of us who are just, well, normal?

Maybe each person is their own baseline against which we measure degrees of normalness.  I mean, we are pretty normal, aren't we?  It reminds me of the Max Lucado book You Are Special where the Wemmicks put dots and stars on each other.  So maybe it's us that hands out the weirdness cards to some, the above average cards to others, and ultimately hands out the cards that are the shortcut to normal.

Preschool Blessings

It seems that the end of each September leaves me astounded by the fact that we have already been in school four weeks.  We have been blessed with nine students this year.  And they really are a blessing (see Psalm 127:3-5).  We spent the first week of school getting to know each other.  The second week we learned how to be good friends by learning about our special friend, Jesus.  These past two weeks we have been studying apples with all of our senses.

Somewhere between the end of week three, when I started wondering if the boys and girls in the class were ever going to figure out what preschool was all about, and the beginning of week four, when everything clicked and it was like they had been in school their whole lives, I was reminded again of how blessed I am to have such an amazing job. 

There are only a few professions where you are greeted each morning by a joyful smile and a body rushing towards you for a hug even before skipping off to the toys.  Even the ministries I’ve worked for were not filled with exuberant laughter the way our classroom is—the kind of giggles that make you fall over and roll on the ground.  The compliments come one after the other and circle the table from the color of my nail polish, to my jewelry, my hair (even when I think it’s a bad hair day), to the fact that we’re wearing the same color shirt.  It’s great to work with people who are thankful for almost everything, where “sorrys” come easily and “I love yous” even more so.  Where when people talk behind your back it’s because they are doing “Crisscross Applesauce” while tickling you.  I get to work in a place where they can’t call each other “weenie” because it’s not nice, but they want to make sure they can still say “hotdog” without getting “the look.”

Of course classroom life is not always rosy.  (Remember the end of week three?)  September is also the time where teachers have to let go of the remembrances of the past year’s class and all of their achievements and the big kids they sent on to the next grade.  I could remember the kindergarteners I had sent across the street, but I was getting little ones who had never been in school before.  We had to work (and some days we are still working) on becoming preschoolers and I had to remind myself that preschoolers are my blessings—not kinders.

But even on our toughest days, when tears are more plentiful than giggles, when whiney voices replace our real ones, and when our hands are used instead of our words, there’s no doubt in my mind that this is where I am supposed to be.