Giveaway closed! Congratulations @ninas.nettles @fernandita31 and @timmonsla 🎉 This beautiful Friday afternoon calls for tea in the library and a GIVEAWAY 🎉🎉🎉 We worked with the talented and creative young mama behind @betterthingscandlecompany to create a candle that captured all the tender warmth of these story time days. Reading together has been a sensory experience for us- the sound of a voice you love, the taste of a homemade cookie, the feel of a soft blanket, that delicious book smell (if you know, you know!) and of course, a story that makes your heart sing!
As a child I rarely responded to things with careful consideration or with a greater purpose in mind. I typically reacted with whatever feelings boiled within my heart in that moment. The vast majority of my growing up years were spent learning the hard way why responses mattered and why I needed to curb reactions and shape them into responses. Marriage and motherhood are exercises in sanctification for me and my flesh driven reactions. For many years, one of the main focuses of our homeschool life together has been repeatedly practicing how we shape our responses. Responses to the Lord, His infallible word, each other, strangers, the greater world, what we read, what we hear— all of it. I know by now that I can not respond with what I do not have. Wisdom, grace, kindness, beauty, TRUTH, must be stored up inside my heart before I can offer it as a response to someone else. This week provided more chances to practice shaping my reactions into good responses. Whether it’s a neighbor’s fear for the future or a child’s reaction to an unwanted bedtime, I must choose to pull from the well of what has been poured inside me and respond with something that hopefully looks more like the love of Christ than the selfish sinful nature of Elsie. I met with failure and success this week, as usual. Repent or rejoice, I made my choices and must choose again today. Yesterday I responded by taking the boys to the beach. Today I responded by engaging in meaningful and important work that will directly impact my children’s futures. I did the dishes and swept the floor, Folded laundry and made a batch of freezer biscuits before the buttermilk turned, made salad dressing, rotated groceries and inventoried the fridge. I read my Bible, listened to a good book, read an essay by Wendell Berry. Watched a bird and a line of ants. I called a friend whose life experience and view of the world differ greatly from mine and I stayed quiet and listened. I scrubbed the toilet and listened to a symphony. I read aloud to the kids. I prayed, “God help me to breathe in today what you would have me breathe out tomorrow, help me shape loving responses.”
These moments are built by years. I look up and behold one of my young men at work and I see the trail of years leading up to the moment. Years of habit training and relationship building. It wasn’t/isn’t easy, and it wasn’t/isn’t all necessarily hard, but it was/is purposeful. In truth my few homeschool resolutions yielded very little (in hindsight that is God’s mercy!). Where I gained the most ground came when I skipped my (often) prideful resolutions and humbly begged for revelations— those Holy Spirit moments when He graciously softens my heart, opens my eyes, tunes my ears, to understand the truth and take that next step of obedience. Those revelations drive me further up and further in than things I resolve to do on my own- they give me bigger, better correction and a refined purpose. A beautiful gift, slow and steady. A chance to repent. A chance to receive forgiveness. A chance to lead and love afresh. Purpose gives grace to whatever plan we set down for the year, even when adjustments to the plan are made. Purpose helps me keep my eyes on the relationship! Some of the big joy in my heart today isn’t just the ease the ongoing work of habit training is bringing to our lives, it’s also the accumulation of years that have built beautiful relationships with my boys. That is JOY- Moments built by years. Five years ago we might have dissolved into tears over a rough lesson. But we’ve had years of problem solving and figuring out how to learn and communicate and that goes a long way in diffusing tough mornings. Years of work, tears, prayer, laughter, goo gone, evaluations, lesson plans, stories and eraser rubbings may not be visible to the eye in this quick mid-morning capture, but my heart sees and remembers. My heart knows the beauty found here this messy morning is an echoed response to the early days of a young mother and her crew of rowdy little boys gathered around box curriculum with an endless list of questions and a prayer on her lips. There is nothing instant about this, Instagram. Hear the truth of what slow and steady builds. Forget “instant” and lean in to the steady discipline of moments built by years. I’m still marching on, slow and steady.
There is an art to the tender work of raising men with chests. Educating the heart is not a work I do alone or one that I get to finish. It’s a teamwork made of many voices spanning many centuries, alongside many people with feet rooted in present community, and most of all, the mysterious and gracious work of the Holy Spirit. I couldn’t help but laugh the other day when someone asked “you homeschool them by yourself?!” I shook my head, “I couldn’t begin to list all the help I’ve had! Robert Louis Stevenson, dragonflies, Handel, Homer, tide pools, Chesterton, Lewis, banyan trees, Tolkien, fairytales, Fra Angelico, Sibelius, Plutarch, Dickens, painted buntings, Paul and John, Sally Clarkson, Cindy Rollins, SD Smith!” This is the pulsing beat of educating the heart. Can you hear it? I was dancing to it before I fully realized what was happening. TRUTH has a melody, constant and real. The rhythm of pulling together the voices, stories, catechisms, songs, art, tastes and scenes that will form and shape appetites and impulses (starting with my own) is the waltz I will dance to for the rest of my life. This little chick helped me teach my son the importance of a gentle hand and the weight of caring well for a small life. I got to witness her fluffy moment of glory and the unveiling of a beautiful side of my son’s character. God used that little chick alongside Barbara Cooney and Vivaldi and Cassat and the warmth of my arms and the softness of my reading chair and the taste of homemade chocolate chip cookies to teach this boy that gentleness requires strength of character. Alone? I think not. I could never enumerate all the help I’ve had. Even on the hardest days our hearts carry whispers of beauty, truth and goodness to sustain us and we get to practice their exhortations. The art in this tender work is appreciating the wealth of ideas around us for ourselves and then sharing in it with our children. Approach with humility, pray for revelation, rinse and repeat. Never underestimate the work God can do with a plate of cookies, a story, a chicken, a song, a mother’s embrace, or a beating heart eager to bring Him glory.
Today he asked me, “Mama, what’s your birthday wish?” and I answered sincerely, “More days like today, doing what God called me to do. Right now that means being your mom.” He looked up at me and smiled, “Mom, I’m so glad you like boys. Not everyone does you know. Sometimes people treat boys like they’ve done something wrong, just by being there. Or if they say something to us, it’s only to say ‘stop running’ or ‘don’t do this or that.’ Maybe they think we don’t notice, but we do. I’m just glad you love boys and our ideas.” I felt simultaneous relief and conviction over his words. I’m so glad he feels loved and wanted. I always wanted to be a boy mom. My wish came true and I love and celebrate my boys. But I also realized I need to keep working on the way I respond to them, especially as they get older. Sometimes I go through phases where I start dancing around the edges of responding to them like they’ve done something wrong when they haven’t—-especially when they’re all together. One big sound wave of calamity and joy and big ideas and pockets knives and curiosity and cravings for risk and danger. It all calls for a daily dying to self and learning to love the way Christ wants us to love. Choosing to lean in and disciple rather than bark orders from three rooms away. (That’s the sort of thing that leads to nagging, which is the quickest way to turn your words into white noise inside their brains). Choosing to love their messes and adventures and say YES to the ideas that make me cringe at first. Choosing to say “i’m sorry. Come back and explain It again, please. I reacted badly and didn’t listen well. Let’s figure out a way to do this together.” Mothering taught me (and is still teaching me) how to apologize well, how to listen attentively and how to love more deeply. My birthday wish is for more days like today. Not because it was perfect but because it was another chance to keep looking to Christ, to keep learning, to keep loving. I’m growing older and so are the boys. The dance is changing. It’s complicated and beautiful and fleeting. It’s leading towards a necessary parting I can only see the edges of. In your mercy, Lord, more days like today.
