Baby Steps

When I went to bed last night, I decided that I’d do 20 minutes of cardio this morning before breakfast.

Of course, the Me-of-this-morning, crawling slowly out of bed with every scab burning and every undissolved stitch itching, declared the Me-of-last-night temporarily insane. I gave myself a reprieve. After all, I did get myself out of bed, showered, and dressed. That’s pretty good, right? 

Three weeks and a day after surgery number thirteen. Or was it fourteen? Is anyone keeping track?

Yesterday was my first day back with the little ones. It was a loooong day, but it was a good one. We worked on slipping back into the old routines, we read stories, we explored 3D shapes – all the typical second grade stuff. It was good to be back. But it was also amazingly hard work. Just being on my feet for the fifteen minutes of recess duty felt like twenty minutes of cardio…

Baby steps.

But even at a slow pace, I’m comforted by the thought that every time I’ve hit rock bottom, with Abba’s help, I’ve crawled back up. Every time I’ve felt shattered into a zillion pieces, in His timing He’s put me back together. Every time my world has jolted to a frozen stop, He’s always held my heart and hand when He got it starting to spin again.

He doesn’t keep pain from me. In fact, Jesus promised His disciples that they would have pain and troubles – it’s just a miserable side effect of our selfishness and sin. But He walks with me through it, and He allows it to shape me, teach me, and even prepare me for something still ahead. Which can actually be quite a frightening thought…

But, baby steps. 

So today is work day two. I’m yawning, but I’m ready.  I’m on my couch praying for Him to enable me – to strengthen me for the tasks He’s got for me. To shelter me from the eager hugs and hard heads in the hallways. To fill my heart to overflowing for His loved ones around me. 

To help me up off the couch and out the door…

Thankful Thursday #2

Last Thursday I let go of my son. Everything else will be anticlimactic. 

But with Thoreau's call to simplify echoing in my heart, I know there's still more to give up.

This week I'm choosing to give up one evening every week to do volunteer work. 

I browsed the web and explored various local organizations to find an interesting local volunteer opportunity and then chose to work with Literacy Volunteers, a program run out of a nearby library. After a five session training in April, I'll begin mentoring an adult who's learning to speak, read, or write English. 

I'm incredibly nervous -- this is so out of my comfort zone. 

But that's the whole point, isn't it? 

It's not about feeling comfortable.

We shouldn't be stuck in our comfortable 9-to-5, work-to-gym-to-home, eat-sleep-eat-work-eat-sleep ruts. Living isn't only about our comfort in this life. In fact, I've found that it's my discomforts in this life that keep me focused on the one to come.

We should be out there looking for ways to make other people's lives just a tad bit more comfortable so that maybe in the process, they will see something in our lives that will point them to the Life beyond.

Maybe it's just smiling at a stranger when stuck in traffic, a kind word of sympathy, paying for the person behind you at the toll booth, holding open a door, or giving up an evening to hang with a new friend.

There's always something you can do to make your corner of the world a little bit brighter.

By the way, I'd love to hear your ideas. Please share!

Good Behavior Party

Today was the good behavior party.

I had promised my little ones before I left that we’d have rootbeer floats the Wednesday I came back. Then I wrote it down on the classroom calendar and went on my way. When my doctor and I agreed on another week off work, I let the principal know that I’d still be in for the party. 

We have good behavior parties once a month. I hold them during recess so that the students who don’t earn a ticket don’t really miss out – they can still go outside and play with their friends. I also let the ones who do make it know that if they really want to they can still go outside and play, too. No one has to come to the party. But seriously, root beer floats? Who’d choose recess over that?

I slipped quietly into the classroom about five minutes before lunch so that I could pass out the tickets. Most of the class was next door in the computer room, but the few stragglers who were finishing up work were quite excited to see me. They’d been well prepped, and no one rushed me with hugs – but their tongues were all going a mile a minute as they tried to tell me their stories – I have a new baby sister, my dog died, my birthday’s in five days…

I passed out the tickets in the computer room – the students were so focused on what they were doing that most didn’t even realize I was there until I placed a ticket on their keyboard. “Miss Nelson is here!” was shouted out at least 15 times. 

Because of snowdays, holidays, and a couple of vacations, this good behavior party was for both January and February, and most of the students made it. I did have a couple of sad students who didn’t, though. A teacher once asked me if I felt bad telling those students that they couldn’t come to the party. Well, yes, a little. But not enough to give them a free ticket. Sadly, in a classroom of 23, behavior issues can get in the way of education, and the good behavior party is a reward for the students who really weren’t doing anything wrong but still had to sit through all the class reminders about how one should and should not behave in class. 

I do have incentive programs and sticker charts in place to help encourage better behavior. But the Good Behavior party isn’t one of those. It’s simply my way of saying thank you to the kids who do what they need to do every day.

As they headed down to lunch, I pulled out the purple table cloth and hung the gold stars in the doorway. I got out the red cups, ice cream, and rootbeer and put on a Rick Charrette cd; and as the students trickled back into the classroom, we partied. 

As I sat there, surrounded by smiles and giggles, drinking rootbeer and listening to them talking all at the same time filling in on the events I’d missed, I realized again that I absolutely love my job. One child told me that the best part of the party was that he’d go home and tell his mom that his teacher gave him soda and she wouldn’t believe him. I then told him that the best part was giving all of them icecream and soda and then leaving them with the sub. But we were both wrong. The best part was the sudden realization that I’m ready to go back.

When the recess bell rang, we did a hasty classroom clean-up. There were a couple of groans as I headed toward the door butI promised to stop in again on Friday, and then be back full time on Monday. “For the rest of the year?” one little one asked me. “For the rest of the year,” I answered back. 

I'm not sure who was more excited...

Lucky!

Today is two weeks from my last surgery. And it’s the first day of my third week of ‘vacation.’

A couple of my friends have jokingly commented on how lucky I am.

And I laugh and agree.

But the whiny one in me secretly cries out, “Lucky?! Lucky??  When I was nine I was torn away from my comfortable world and dragged around like an extra suitcase for nine years. When I was 20 I was a single mother on welfare trying to find enough money to buy a loaf of bread. When I was 33 my body staged a revolt and tried to kill me – I was fighting for my life instead of helping my son transition into his teen years. And who knows when my retina detached. Now I can’t do anything that might jar it for the rest of my life…”

But as the whiny one rants on as whiny ones do, the thoughtful one makes a new realization.

When I was nine I learned how to leave my comfort zone in the name of the King, and I saw the beautiful blessings that come from it. I also made family all across the globe – which significantly increased my comfort zone. When I was 19, drinking and drugging, God gave me a baby who turned my life around. He not only provided bread for each day, but He abundantly blessed us over and above each of our needs. When I was 33, I found new friends and family. I learned to depend and found so many who loved me that I could depend on. I found a strength that I didn’t know I had, and not only did my son successfully transition into his teens, but he’s sense transitioned into an adult who’s learned to leave his own comfort zone in the service of the king. And as for the detached retina – I was walking around for more than six months with a detached retina with absolutely no loss to my vision.

Seriously – that kind of looks lucky.

But those of us in the know don’t call it luck. It’s the hand of God.

And I have been nestled in that hand my whole life.

What about you? What's your 'luck' story?

Last day -- or not...

Today I got up super early in the morning (8:00) and got showered and ready for the big day – my last day of vacation (I mean, sick leave…). My morning routine was briefly interrupted by a Rhode Island police officer who was doing a background check on one of my neighbors – (they really do hold the badge up in your face as you open the door, just like in the movies...) – but I still made it out the door and to the hospital only five minutes late. Of course, I was over fifteen minutes late to my appointment after the search for a parking spot.

The nurse saw me quickly (as in both, there was little wait to see her, and I only saw her for a couple of minutes before I was out the door and on my way home again).  She pulled off a couple of adhesives, made faces at my retelling of my chat with the on-call doc, told me that blisters are not normal and to come in next time, and then wrote me a note adding another week onto my vacation.  Everything is healing nicely. I just need to keep resting and let it keep healing nicely.

I stopped at Walmart on the way home to restock on a couple of munchies (and I grabbed a bag of salad just in case I get tired of the microwave food). Then ate some chicken and did some dishes, before collapsing back onto my couch with my pile of books.

I miss my little ones and my classroom, but I was so amazingly grateful to collapse back onto my couch. I might just sleep for the next week…

On Giving

My son has been pondering the possibility of purposely being homeless for a while after college. He has a whole list of reasons that may or may not be valid – I missed most of them because my mind was busy conjuring up all of the things that could go wrong. But, if this is something he chooses to do, I’ll let him.

Because I trust him. 

He’s grown into such a mature young man, and he’s learning to listen and step forward without hesitating. I hope to learn that lesson one day…

And I trust God, too.

Which is good, because no matter how much I look at my son in pride, I can still see all those stupid things that kid did while growing up, from eating cardboard to giving in to peer pressure. Sometimes he makes mistakes. 

But he’s always in God’s hands.

The last time he was home for a bit, he sat in a chair reading a book. “You should read this,” he said at one point. When he went back to school, he left the book out on the kitchen table. 

He’s in Nicaragua on a missions trip right now. The other day I was missing him, so in attempt to feel closer, I began digging into his book's pages, and once I picked it up I found it hard to put down. You should read it – Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski.

It’s about a college student who took half a year off school to experience homelessness, to see firsthand if the church is meeting the needs of the homeless, and to truly depend on his God for the first time in his life.

Now, I’m at peace with my son’s decision – whatever he may decide. 

Not only is it his life to live, but it’s also the greatest gift he has to give to his God…

And now I’m challenged. What gift will I give?

What will I let go of to grow closer to my God?

And I realize that I’ve already given it.

Abba – I give you my son.

Thank You for the precious, priceless moments that You’ve allowed me to share with him – and for the ones still to come. I step back to let him step forward. Bless his hands, his feet, his tongue that You unlocked when he was three years old and couldn’t talk. Use him to advance Your kingdom here on earth – wherever, however, in whatever circumstances You choose. 

So I'm passing the challenge on. What will you give?